


Juno Steel and the Other Nureyev

by This_Witch_Writes



Series: Family Circus [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Aurinko Crime Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Peter Nureyev Needs a Hug, Post-Canon, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29620983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_Witch_Writes/pseuds/This_Witch_Writes
Summary: After the Dark Matters attack, Nureyev confesses his debts to the crew of the Carte Blanche and proposes a job to clear them and do some good at the same time. Buddy seeks out a specialists she and Vespa have worked with before to join them for the job. But this saboteur turns out to have a surprising connection to Nureyev and his past. Why wouldn't he have told Juno he had sister?
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Family Circus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211696
Comments: 28
Kudos: 51





	1. Juno: A Secret

**Author's Note:**

> So this was another dumb idea I had in this exhausting wait for more Junoverse. What Lies Beyond make have to be listed as my actual cause of death. 
> 
> Basically I thought, I would like to hurt Nureyev today, what's some trauma he doesn't already have? SIBLINGS! Perfect. And that's it, that's the fic.

Something I’ve noticed in my life, time doesn’t treat all years the same. Some years stand out in your memory like their main events are tattooed on the inside of your eyelids (or eyelid singular if your me), while others are a vague haze of _well yeah and then that happened I guess_. The last few years have definitely fallen into the first category for better and worse. I can even tell you the exact moment I mark it from: one leg out my office window and the sound of Rita giggling through the door. Sunglasses and sharp teeth. Juno Steel meets Peter Nureyev.

That’s not to say all the last three years highs and lows have been with or because of this damn, impossible thief, flirting his way through my life like a hurricane in heels. But I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t a big part of it. Even where we are now, the common room of the Carte Blanche, a ship of inter-planetary thieves that Rita and I joined up with after I finally got my head on straight. I didn’t even know Nureyev would be here. I’ve seen a lot of different versions of him too, polished and smirking, reckless and dangerous, hurt and trying to pretend he wasn’t, but this one is my favourite.

He’s barely done his elaborate cosmetics for the day and is just wearing an old shirt of mine to breakfast. He’s wearing one of last night’s earrings and not the other and hasn’t noticed yet. He’ll be outraged with me for not telling him when he figures it out but it’s worth it. This is as close to himself as Nureyev gets when it’s more than just the two of us. Rita get glimpses now and again if the three of us are watching some stream together and she asks him to paint her nails and I have to focus on my snacks to avoid my heart bursting. All this is just some long-winded way to say that when Buddy starts a family meeting that morning and I tuck a bit of hair behind Nureyev’s ear I could have been paying more attention.

‘We have a somewhat…’ Buddy hesitated in choosing her next word. That is itself should have made me nervous but I hadn’t finished my coffee and Nureyev starting tracing patterns into my thigh under the table. ‘…a somewhat awkward mission ahead of us.’

‘Awkward how, Captain?’ Nureyev’s face was the picture of innocent as his clever fingers moved higher up my in-seam.

‘Per your plan, Pete, in order to best complete our next job, we need to recruit the help of a demolitions expert. You didn’t have a strong recommendation and there is a specialist saboteur that Vespa and I worked with 15 years ago, who would be ideal. Coincidentally also goes by the name Ransom on occasion, darling, though I doubt that it’s any more likely to be her name than yours.’

That made Nureyev stop fooling around and he sat to attention. ‘Oh? What are they like?’

‘She’s talented, adaptable and handy in a fight. She’s made rather a name for herself taking out experimental weapons and security systems and there’s no one better for demolitions.’

‘But why is it awkward? She sounds great,’ I drained my coffee and forced myself to really engage with the briefing. 

Vespa grunted vaguely. ‘Our last job with her didn’t end so well, Steel. She isn’t my biggest fan.’

‘The way I have heard Buddy tell the story,’ Jet interrupted. ‘You stabbed her.’

‘Yeah well…’ Vespa gives up on her angry reply halfway through. ‘Yeah it wasn’t my finest moment. We had got what we came for but I find her trying to send a message through the corps internal systems and thought she was selling us out.’

‘But you were wrong, dear.’ Buddy chimed in.

‘But I was wrong,’ her wife admitted through gritted teeth. ‘And I was gonna apologise but she vanished and then our next job was…’ Vespa looked away from Buddy and I filled in the rest. That was when their lives fell about for more than a decade.

‘Despite meeting the sharp end of my Vespa, it appears Koroleva Ransom has continued her work over the years though with longer and longer gaps between jobs. It’s been hard to track her down in recent years not that I’ve had much reason to try before now.’ Buddy paused again to pull out some floor plans.

While she did, I noticed that hearing an alias so like his own and so similar to the kind of thing he’d choose, seemed to have unsettled Nureyev a bit. It wasn’t like I could ask him about it now though so that would have to get dealt with later.

‘Now this hotel is hosting a conference of various security companies and government representatives. Civil servants and warmongers convention for lack of a better phrase. I got a tip from an old mutual contact that Koroleva would be there scoping out her next target. She’s unlikely to be thrilled to see me or Vespa after last time and Jet’s connection to me is well known by now so Juno, you and Pete will have to handle delicate first contact.’

‘How will we even find her?’

‘She’s about your height, dark hair, slim though a bit muscular, is rarely without a jacket full armaments and will be in the empty ballroom at midnight tomorrow night for a pre-arranged meeting with our contact, who will not be showing up.’

‘Oh,’ I shrugged. ‘That solves that I guess.’

Of course that’s when Nureyev went to push his hair all the way out of his face and noticed the earring thing. I shouldn’t have laughed. A few months ago he probably would have fled the room at the mere hint of weakness but ever since Nureyev came clean to the crew about his debts after the Curemother heist he’s been trying to relax a bit more. It’s been met with mixed success sure but he’s trying. So instead of running back to his room to steam any perceived imperfection out, Nureyev just slaps my shoulder grumpily, and puts the earring on me while sticking his tongue out. Then he finishes his breakfast. I was too busy smiling to even notice my eggs getting cold.

* * *

It was a relatively simple job compared to other cons we’d run. Nureyev and I went in as Martian civil servants and milled around until midnight. Everyone else took backways in and waited to be needed as backup and Rita stayed with the ship to run comms. Of course when has it ever actually been that simple?

The ballroom was dark when we got there just before the rendezvous time. I could barely see a thing as I approach the edge of the bar. Nureyev melted into the shadows somewhere behind me as expected. I ended up sitting there for ten minutes or more before I hear someone approaching.

‘Koroleva R – ?’ Before I could get the rest of my question out there’s the distressingly familiar sensation of a very sharp knife at my throat. ‘Okay then.’

‘Who are you and what do you want?’ A low lilting voice hissed at me, a bit muffled like through a mask or scarf.

‘Well I’m Juno, I’m a Capricorn and I’m really just looking for love,’ at this point I swear I don’t even try to be an asshole, it happens by itself.

‘Keep getting cute and I’ll slit your throat!’

‘I’m naturally cute I can’t help it.’

‘Yes you are, love,’ Nureyev’s voice appeared behind me too with a small metallic sound I associated with him drawing a blade. It was frustrating not to be able to see any of the action. ‘Release him, or it’s your own throat you’ll have to worry about.’

‘You sure you can kill me before I kill, what’d you say, Juno?’

Nureyev laughed, cold and hard. ‘I am certain you would die either way.’

‘Not helping Ran…Peter…,’ the name was awkward to use but since apparently they both went by Ransom it was the less confusing option. ‘We’re only hear to talk Koroleva. You are Koroleva Ransom right?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Like I said, I’m Juno Steel, this is Peter and we’d like to talk to you about a job.’

Her knife pressed harder against my throat. ‘And how did you know I’d be here tonight Juno Steel?’

‘Don’t make me tell you again to put the knife down,’ Nureyev obviously sensed the tension in her arms from where it seems like he had her pinned from behind.

She froze though, a little tiny gasp just behind my ear. ‘Say that again.’

‘You don’t think I’m serious Ms. Ransom? I…’

‘No, just say, say what you just said before again!’ Her outer rim accent deepened slightly with the strained quality to her voice. ‘Please.’

Nureyev sounded as confused as I felt when he repeated ‘Don’t make me tell you again to put the knife down?’

I felt the slow release of Koroleva Ransom’s breath against the back of my neck and the knife relaxed a little.

‘Okay,’ she said evenly. ‘Okay. Let’s have that conversation but we’re going to need some light. Juno Steel if we all move five feet to the right there’s a light switch you should be able to reach behind the bar.’

So then the three of us did the weirdest, most awkward shuffle at knife-point for a minute. I would have paid good money to be able to see what we looked like. Eventually I was able to reach of a panel that turned the bar lights on and everything was visible in the dim glow.

Koroleva had put some space between her body and mine so I could see her now on my good side. Dressed in a sharp black suit at odds with a ventilated mask and clearly ancient green leather jacket. Her dark brown hair was pulled into the tightest bun on the highest point of her head and evidence of a tan around the mask. The surprise was something soft and hopeful about her hazel eyes.

‘Alright, I’m going to let go of your friend here now Peter, then I’m going to take my mask off and turn around. Think you can resist the urge to stab me? You’ll feel really silly if you do.’

I could see Nureyev better now too. He was afraid and I had no idea why. As Koroleva let go of me and we all quickly took a step back away from each other, he didn’t look as relieved as he normally would when there was no longer a knife at my throat, didn’t step between us as I’d teased him for doing a hundred times. He just stood there and stared at Koroleva putting her knife away and slowly removing her mask like it was the most terrifying thing in the world.

Seeing Koroleva’s face didn’t tell me much more than I already know. She was mid-thirties, and good looking in a strong featured kind of way. But the way her and Nureyev stared at each other…recognition, disbelief, affection. There was a lot there.

‘Hey Peter.’ She whispered.

‘Regina?’ Nureyev croaked back. ‘How? What? I…’

Very few things or people could render Nureyev speechless. It was something I took great pride in whenever I achieved it. I’d never seen an old mark or partner flummox him like this and I’ll admit, something like the beginnings of jealous was starting to eat at me. Sue me. That jealousy was really given legs when Nureyev seemed to finally blink himself back into the present moment, dashed forward and picked Koroleva (or what had he said? Regina?) up in a crushing hug.

And then they were both babbling and laughing.

‘I barely recognised you! Look at you!’

‘Look at you P, why are you so tall?!’

‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,’ he laughed. ‘I thought you’d retired and disappeared.’

‘Just my old name,’ she smiled back. ‘Did you seriously not realised it was me? I picked this alias specifically to get your attention, I mean seriously, _Koroleva Ransom_ , I might as well have used the real one!’

‘It crossed my mind when I heard it but honestly I thought it was wishful thinking.’ Nureyev finally put her down. ‘It’s very good to see you safe, even if…I think I’d prefer if you’d retired.’

‘Yeah well,’ some ice was starting to seep back into this woman’s, whoever she was, voice. ‘You gave up right to tell me what to do with my life a long time ago, P.’

‘Reggie,’ he flinched. ‘I…’ There he went again running out of words while she stared him down. ‘I’m sorry.’

It was clear even to me, who had absolutely no idea what was going on, that this had been the wrong thing to say. The soft hopeful edges of Koroleva/Regina disappeared behind a cold marble mask in another move I found distressingly familiar.

Whatever she said next was in a language I didn’t speak, but one I just about recognised from the those occasions that Nureyev sang in the shower or muttered in his sleep.

‘That’s not necessary, Regina,’ Nureyev stuck with Solar for my benefit. ‘Whatever you have to say Juno can hear. He knows.’

That threw her. She gave me a real hard look up and down. ‘Knows what?’

‘My name, Brahma, Mag.’ Nureyev gave me an anxious, almost apologetic glance. ‘You can trust Juno.’

‘Your name, Brahma, Mag,’ Regina repeated. ‘You must be quite the find, Juno Steel, to get all that. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.’ She turned back to Nureyev. ‘But you never mentioned me? Because his face sure looks like you didn’t.’

‘I assumed you wouldn’t want me to risk…’

‘I’m sorry,’ I stopped being able to fight the urge to interrupt. ‘What the hell is going on? Is this…uh…were you and her…?’

There was a brief moment of confused silence before both of them treated me to near identical expressions of disgust.

‘Uh no! Gross!’ Regina actually shuddered which seemed overboard and the sort of thing that would normally prompt Nureyev to fake some wounded vanity, but he seemed to be on the same page as her.

Before I could get any closer to unravelling this mess the doors banged open and in ran Buddy, Vespa and Jet. They seemed surprised by the way we were all just standing around staring at each other, especially with _Koroleva_ so close to Nureyev still.

‘Buddy and Vespa?’ Regina seemed genuinely shocked. ‘You two found each other again huh? That’s nice. And is that Jet Sikuliaq back there? I don’t know about Juno here, but with the rest of us we have the makings of an old thieves convention.’

Nureyev scoffs. ‘You’re the youngest one here, you brat.’

‘I know,’ she smirks icily back. ‘Sucks to the eldest.’ Her smirk reveals two sharpened canines from behind her lip for the first time.

Oh. _Oh._

‘What the hell is going on in here? Do you two know each other Ransom?’ Vespa stopped. ‘Eh… the tall one.’

‘Hey Vespa,’ the cold, cold stare changed target. ‘Unless the next words out of your mouth are “oh Koroleva I’m so sorry I fucking stabbed you and left you for dead” I don’t really want to hear it.’

‘You left her for dead on that job?’ Nureyev rounded on Vespa as well. ‘That wasn’t in this morning’s briefing!’

‘Briefing?’ That got Regina’s attention again. ‘Are you working for Aurinko? And you were fine with a bit of stabbing me so long as I didn’t get left behind as well?’

‘I didn’t know it was you!’

‘How…?!’

‘Darlings!’ Buddy raised her voice. ‘As delightful as this rather loud bickering in a room we are not meant to be in, past midnight, is, I think it would help if the rest of the class understood the background here.’

I couldn’t help laughing at that which meant every was looking at me all of a sudden, which I didn’t really want. There were looks of genuine confusion on Buddy, Vespa and Jet’s faces.

‘What really?’ I asked, still trying to force the hysterical edge out of my voice. ‘What are you three all only children or something?’

Nureyev gave me a pained look. ‘Juno…’

‘Nope,’ I shock back. ‘We can talk about this on the ship, _Peter_.’ Telling myself I didn’t care at how he winced at the harsh use of his name.

Then it was Regina’s turn to laugh. And reach into her jacket. And have her hands emerge with a plasma grenade in one hand and the pin in the other.

‘This has been fun,’ she smiled calmly around the room, spinning the pin on a finger. ‘But I think I would like answers now before things start going boom.’ She gestured at Buddy. ‘Aurinko, what do you know this lanky asshole as?’

‘Peter Ransom, darling.’

Regina blinked in surprised and looked up at Nureyev in surprised. ‘Wow, I picked that name to get your attention but you using it is kind of messed up, P.’

‘Please shut up, Reg…Koroleva.’ He grimaced back at her.

She just rolled her eyes and went back to Buddy. ‘Why did you hire him?’

That question seemed to puzzle Buddy. ‘Well he’s rather a good thief you know…’

‘There’s a lot of good thieves in the galaxy, why him? How much did you know?’

Nureyev seemed to be the only one who knew what she was talking about and he was the closest to her. Keeping his hands up, he moved into her line of sight. ‘Koroleva, they don’t know, not about me and I would never tell them anything about you. Never. You know that.’

‘Don’t tell me what I know, Peter.’ She didn’t look at him. ‘Oy Vespa, when you stabbed me did you bother to look at the message I was trying to send or were you too busy running away.’

‘I just saw that there would be a message not what it said and then I got out of there.’ Vespa actually sounded guilty , which was unusual.

‘Did you see a name?’ Regina pressed, looking mostly at Buddy.

‘Koroleva, stop it,’ Nureyev stepped closer to her again, all slow movements. ‘They don’t know. I applied to be on the crew. The alias is a coincidence. It’s my first time using it since…well you know since when. I sought them out.’

‘Is that true Buddy?’ Regina lowered the grenade a little and took a deep breath. ‘Because if you’re planning to hurt him to get to me you will regret it.’

‘Never, darling. Pete here is a valuable member of my family and we’re only hire to hire you not hurt you.’

It’s not clear what about this convinces Regina when nothing said before seemed to but at least everyone can take an easier breath. She tucks the explosive away into her coat somewhere like it’s a wallet and looks up at Nureyev.

‘Are you going to introduce me to your _family_ or what Peter?’ There was a challenge there.

Nureyev swallowed with far more obvious nerves than he liked to give away in public usually. ‘Captain, Vespa, Jet… Juno…. I’d like to introduce to my younger sister, Regina.’


	2. Juno: A Surprise

We hightailed it out of the hotel after Nureyev’s introduction and Regina came with. She didn’t seemed sure she wanted the job and she definitely didn’t want to be anywhere near Vespa but it was clear she wasn’t willing to let Nureyev out of her sight. The weird thing was it wasn’t clear what she wanted from the reunion yet, obviously there was a lot I didn’t know but she seemed to swing wildly between over-the-moon to see him again and wanting to strangle him with her bare hands. In fairness, he was known to have that effect on people. 

Buddy wanted a family meeting when we got back but Regina wanted a minute alone with Nureyev. Vespa didn’t want them alone together and Nureyev was clinging on to my hand like he might drown without it. The three of us ended up in my quarters as some version of a compromise. 

The second the door clicked shut, Regina turned to me. ‘You want to go first? Once I start shouting I might just kill him so if you’ve got any questions you want to get in before that…’

I ignored her and looked to Nureyev would had pressed himself up against an empty wall like we were a firing squad. ‘Secret sister? That’s a fun twist. What happened to honesty?’

‘You never asked and we’re obviously not biologically related…’ he didn’t try pretending he thought this was a good argument. 

‘Yeah we do look nothing alike,’ Regina chimed in mildly. ‘Which is a pity I could have used some of the height.’

‘There’s the teeth,’ I point out.

She laughed and pressed the tip of her tongue to one point. ‘Yeah but they’re not real!’ Then she looked between my blink and Nureyev’s pained expression and laughed again. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Some things are private, Regina.’

‘You told him about killing Mag but the veneers were a step too far!? You’re a lunatic!’ Nureyev winced again.

‘Okay forget the teeth!’ This whole conversation seemed to just keep getting away from me. ‘Mag picked you up too?’

Regina’s nose wrinkled in disgust again. ‘Ugh no. I mean don’t get me wrong, Mag was okay to the street kids. Let us sleep in his safehouses in bad weather or if he was away in exchange for keeping an eye on the place or tailing people when he needed extra eyes. Some pickpocketing now and again. But we were a hoard of randomers to him. Not like the golden boy over here.’

‘Don’t,’ Nureyev’s voice was hoarse. 

‘I’m not…’ she sighed. ‘I’m not here to have a 20 year old argument about the old bastard P, even if I wish you’d listened to me. But to answer your question, Juno, no Mag didn’t save me. Peter did. I was a couple of years younger. We all just guessed our ages really. He looked after me, taught me to read, to fight, to steal, and gave me a name. Regina Nureyev.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And then he left me.’

That had clearly been the blow Nureyev had been waiting for. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. 

‘Okay,’ I swallowed. ‘Last question and then I think you have the floor. Why hide this from me when I already knew most of the story?’

‘I didn’t think you’d respect my choice, or be able to forgive it.’ He didn’t open his eyes. ‘Once I knew about Benzaiten… how could I tell you I’d abandoned my sibling? That I didn’t know if she was alive or dead and was too scared to look in case the trouble that followed me found her too?’ Nureyev shook his head. ‘I was ashamed.’

Regina stared at him for a minute and then kicked Nureyev hard in the shin. His eyes flew open and he spluttered in surprise at the ridiculousness of the assault. She just folded her arms. 

‘Good to know you’re still an insufferable drama queen. You’re done talking now, so look at me and listen. I know you and it didn’t take me long after New Kinshasa to figure out what had happened with you and Mag. The fact that you’d panicked and escaped the whole planet, I didn’t really have a problem with that. It made sense. I would’ve still tried to find you first if it had been me up there but… I got it. I was the we’re stronger together one and you’re the martyr one – so fine. But I honestly just assumed you’d come back for me or send word where I should go. Even after New Kinshasa, I kept your name, stayed in the same neighbourhood. It put a target on my back but I thought it was the only way you could find me again.’ Nureyev was starting to shrink in on himself a bit but doggedly kept eye contact. ‘Those were bad years. Eventually it got too bad and I had to flee Brahma as well. By that point I was freshly an adult and decided I’d had enough waiting around and that I would try to find you myself. I needed funds so I stole them. I need data so I conned my way to accessing it. The whole time keeping your name, our name, so you’d find me even if I didn’t find you.’ Regina’s face was hard and her tone even but tears were starting to gather at the corners of her eyes. Nureyev looked like he’d genuinely forgotten how to breathe and I was scared to move. ‘I thought I’d found you once but it was a trap and there was an explosion. I spent months in hospital because they mixed me up with some heiress who’d gotten caught in the blast. Managed to escape before they figured it out. That’s when I decided you were dead and I stopped using our name for business. Koroleva Ransom took over. I thought it’d be just enough to catch your attention without alerting our enemies if it turned out you were alive. Apparently not.’

She stopped. I took a breath. Nureyev wheezed slightly and leaned against the wall. 

‘So I only have one question P. Why?’

Nureyev closed his eyes again and shook his head. His clever mouth opened and closed a few times but nothing came out. Snarling Regina stepped forward like she was going to hit him again but instead just stormed out of the room. Nureyev let himself slide to floor, long legs tucked up to his chest. I wanted to still be angry. I think if he’d had a clever answer or if he’d tried to defend himself at all I would have been. This was more defeated than I’d ever seen him and I’d seen him tortured, shot, stabbed, tossed off moving vehicles, and confronted with killing the closest thing to a father he’d ever had. Watching him sit there, not even crying, honestly scared me. 

So I sat down beside him, and leaned my head against his shoulder. 

‘I made a choice, Juno,’ he whispered eventually. ‘I made a choice a lifetime ago and maybe it was wrong, but there was no way to take it back, so I told myself it was for the best. That I was better off forgotten by everyone. I thought that was better.’

I held him and made soothing noises but honestly this was uncharted territory for us. It’s not that I hadn’t ever comforted Nureyev after a nightmare or a bad day or when he worked himself to the bone but this was different. Those were times where either Nureyev knew the threat was imaginary or past or there was something concrete I could do, get him food or water or a blanket. I might not be an emotional expert but I knew I couldn’t just fix this. 

‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ I regretted asking it the second I heard my own voice. 

He tensed but didn’t pulled away. ‘Yes, but honestly probably not until something pushed me to. I’ve been pretending to have forgotten her for a long time. It’s a hard habit to drop.’ Then Nureyev did pull away. ‘Juno, love, can you please make sure Regina and Vespa aren’t at each other’s throats. I think I need a moment before any of this gets repeated for the whole crew.’

‘Are you sure? I can…’

‘It’s just…’ he winced and stared down at his hands – probably knowing I wouldn’t like what he had to say next. ‘Peter Ransom doesn’t have a sister. I have to figure out who he’d be if he did.’

‘Babe, this clearly isn’t the day, but you know we’re going to have to talk about how unhealthy what you just said is, right?’

‘Yes, my love.’

‘Alright,’ I kissed the top of his head, he squeezed my hand, and I dragged myself groaning off the floor. I really, really didn’t want to leave him like this but what could I do?

I found the others in the common area but there was no sign of Regina. The obvious question must have shown on my face because Buddy volunteer that our new guest had decided to cool off in our make shift target range for a little while before the discussion went any further. 

‘Where the hell is Ransom?’ Vespa spat. ‘This is his mess too!’

‘How exactly? How was he meant to predict this, Vespa? It’s a big galaxy!’

‘Well let him come out and explain that!’

‘He needs a minute.’ I didn’t like being back in this position. Standing in between Nureyev and the crew. We had just started to build a little trust between them and this wasn’t helping. 

‘Oh he needs a minute,’ Vespa sneered. ‘Well he also needs to get to family meetings when Buddy god damn calls them.’ She started to head towards my room. 

I got between Vespa and the door. ‘I said he need a minute, damn it! Buddy!?’

Thankfully, our captain decided to side with me. ‘Vespa, darling, I think we can wait a few moments for Pete to compose himself without too much harm. Let’s sit down a minute, shall we?’ We did and Buddy looked up at me expectantly. ‘Well, Juno, while we wait for your beau, can you shed any light on the situation.’

This was exactly the kind of stuck in the middle problem I wanted to avoid. 

‘It’s a private thing so I won’t tell their business beyond, they were orphans who grew up in the same situation and sort of adopted each other as kids. Then some bad things happens in their late teens and they’ve been separated ever since. It’s partially Rans… Peter’s fault but also he was seventeen so to be really fair…’ I was getting off topic. ‘Obviously I know some details but honestly they’re not really that relevant other than neither of them want their real last name to get out and there’s a lot of… feelings.’ The rest of the crew were still watching me. ‘That’s most of it and it’s definitely all I’m saying. It’s up to them if they wanted to discuss it in detail but it’s not a crime thing, it’s a family thing, so frankly you don’t really need to know.’

Buddy hummed slightly as she considered my little speech and ended up nodding. ‘That seems fair darling. It’s clear the conflict is a personal one not a professional one. But as you well understand we blur that line quite extensively in this family and we cannot complete this job with two people incapable of being in the same room.’ Her perfect crimson fingernails tapped thoughtfully off the table for a second. ‘Very well, I think it’s time I went and had a word with Pete and Vespa you need to make things right with other younger Ransom. Figure out if she’d rather Regina or Koroleva, while you’re at it, it wasn’t clear earlier.’ Satisfied with herself Buddy stood, expecting her plan to be followed immediately. 

Vespa and me both got to our feet spluttering. 

‘Ransom really doesn’t to see anyone and specifically asked me to make sure Vespa and Regina didn’t end up stabbing each other in the corridors…’

‘Buddy! You know she doesn’t want to talk to me and anyway we’ll just start a fight and you’ll need to…’

‘No.’ Buddy shook her head. ‘I believe I made myself clear. Juno if Peter is so worried you can accompany Vespa to speak to, let’s say Regina for now, but please let them resolve their differences themselves.’

How could I argue with that?

Following Vespa, darkly muttering to herself, down into the storage area Buddy and me converted into a shooting range was more nerve wracking than I care to admit. Time along with Vespa was never easy even if things had been getting better recently. It was Regina who really worried me. Maybe it was just the idea of her, someone from Nureyev’s past he’d hidden from me, but I think it was more than more. She was all Nureyev’s issues and violence with none of the artifice or affection for me to take the edge off. I always known how dangerous Nureyev was to have as enemy but it’d been a long time since I’d had to think about what being that enemy would be like. Regina… well I was hoping I was just being paranoid. 

I loved the shooting range though and the heat and smell of blaster cartridges soothed my nerves a little as we came down the steps. 

Regina was in motion. She tossed knife after knife as targeting moving to a pattern I’d programmed in last month. She moved like… hell I knew exactly who she moved like. 

She knew it too. As the target moved up the range to return her blades, Regina smirked at me. The little vicious smile that showed off her teeth. ‘Seen a ghost, Juno?’

‘Guess I shouldn’t be surprised,’ I shrugged. 

‘Hmm,’ she sighed noncommittally as she restarted the programme. ‘Yeah when it comes to a knife I tended to copy Peter, and that’s probably why he’s a little better than me. More dedicated to a single style and his goddam aesthetic. Me?’ Regina laughed and snatched a blaster up off the table. Vespa and I both tensed before Regina span on her heel and fired four shots. Good shots and I would know. ‘I’m more of a pragmatist.’

‘Yeah this is great and all, Ransom, but can we talk?’ Vespa scuffed her boot off the last step. 

‘Sorry Ilkay,’ Regina gave a different, colder smile. ‘I just wanted to calm Juno down a little. This is our first time alone together and he’s fucking my brother so…’

I spluttered and Vespa actually laughed. Traitor. 

‘I’m just messing with you, Juno,’ she continued. ‘Meeting the in-laws is always a little awkward, sweetie, I just wanted to break the ice.’

‘In-laws? We’re not…! I mean…!’ I stopped stammered at a deeply familiar look of relieved satisfaction that flickered in Regina’s eyes and then it was my turn to laugh. ‘Of course, you do it too.’

‘Do what, Juno? Welcome you into my family? Do you have intentions…?’

‘Yeah, that!’ I cut across her. ‘It’s good. Making someone squirm, uncomfortable or embarrassed or at least wrong-footed enough, that they’re on the defensive and not looking into you. First time I met N…your brother, was on a case where he was playing me. Flirted so hard he practically had his tongue in my ear at a crime scene. Nearly worked too.’

‘Gross, Steel!’ Vespa shoved me. 

But Regina just made a small amused sound and looked me up and down again. ‘Okay. I think I’m starting to get it. We’re good.’

‘Great,’ I rolled my eyes and sat down on the bottom step. ‘Two of them.’


	3. Regina: A Lie

My name to my family is Regina Nureyev and I’m still trying to figure out who that includes. It includes two people on a planet far away from the ship I am currently on. It, for better or worse, includes my adopted brother who abandoned me in the slums of Brahma at fifteen. His better half, Juno Steel, had potential and he already knew it through Peter, but I don’t hand out trust to people I just met. I like him fine, but we’re not there.

Once upon a time it might have included Buddy and Vespa but that bridge had been burned. Which was exactly why I was sweating in a shooting range with a green-haired doctor-come-thief-come-assassin shuffling in her boots like a child that’s been caught smoking behind the shed.

‘Come on Ilkay,’ I eventually lose patience. ‘Spit it out! Whatever your excuse is, spit it out so we can move on.’

‘I’m sorry!’ Vespa shouted back. ‘I was wrong and I’m sorry. I had reasons and evidence, of course I did, but obviously none of it enough and it’d be bullshit to go through it all now and…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, alright?’

This apology did something different to me than Peter’s had. From him I wanted words, reasons, explanations as to why I’d been left behind. An apology alone was just noise I didn’t care about. But I already knew why Vespa stabbed me. Someone on the crew back then was betraying us, she found me acting shifty at a terminal and assumed it was me. It wasn’t and Buddy and Vespa both ended up paying pretty dearly for that when they’re next job went wrong. I didn’t need vengeance. I’d survived and they’d suffered enough. I just didn’t really trust them or want to work with them again. I never would have got on the ship if it hadn’t been for Peter. 

But Vespa Ilkay admitting she was wrong. That was really something. 

‘I just thought,’ I hated the weakness in the next thing I had to say; but I had to say it. ‘I thought we were friends, that you trusted me better than that.’

‘We were friends, Lev,’ Vespa slipped and used an old nickname. ‘It was bad time I wasn’t thinking straight. Hell you were just a kid.’

‘I was 22!’

‘I said what I said, kid.’ That shit-eating grin came out. I hadn’t seen it in a long time and damn, all of a sudden I remembered my intense childhood crush on Vespa Ilkay. God I hoped I wasn’t blushing now. 

Instead of saying anything else I put the blaster down and stretched out a hand. Neither of us were really huggers outside of our wives or family. Vespa gave another little bark of laughter and shook my hand. This was enough. 

‘Okay then, if that’s enough kissing and making up, Buddy wants us upstairs for a family meeting at some point tonight before the rest of the crew passes out.’ Vespa huffed and scowled away from the sincerity and I let her. 

‘Give me a minute, just need to put some stuff away. Lend me a hand, Juno?’

Juno Steel. He seemed popular among the crew, fitting with them more naturally than Peter. Peter had let Juno speak for him more than once to the others. I wondered if they realised that he’s withdrawal was a sign of comfort with them or if they still needed one of his performances. Did Juno? Peter had made some comment calling him _detective_ and Juno himself said he’d met Peter at a crime scene but I had to say the lady standing in front of me now, scarred and sharp at the same time as soft and warm, picking nervously at the strap of his eyepatch didn’t look like a cop to me. 

‘Yeah okay,’ Juno got off the stairs and Vespa went up them. Once she was gone he tried another of his challenging smiles at me. ‘If this where you try to find out if I’m good enough for your brother?’

‘No,’ but I laughed at the idea. Pictured myself flipping a grenade in my hands and telling him to have Peter home from the heist by midnight. Maybe in some other life. ‘I’ve seen how you look at him, and if he’s trusted you with as much as he’s trusted you with then you proved yourself already some other day I just wasn’t there.’ I shook that thought away too. ‘No, I just want to know, how he is. I look at him and I’m still so angry but…’

‘You still want to know how he’s been?’ Juno moved a bit closer and leaned on the edge of the range. ‘It’s been a difficult couple of years. Nu…Peter’s spent so long being other people, never staying in one place. The change of being Peter Nureyev again, even just behind closed doors, scares him. I think I understand some of that fear a bit better now that I’ve met you. It was clear something else about leaving Brahma bothered him but I just assumed it was having to leave without having completely stopped the Guardian Angel System not…’

‘Not a person.’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ he winced and then tried a weak, flickering smile. ‘After we met, we went through bad things together, and I fucked up and hurt him. We both had a rough year apart and found each other again on the Carte Blanche. We’ve been here a year and just pulled off the craziest heist ever. We haven’t had much time to celebrate that yet now I come to think of it.’

‘Has he told you why he signed up as Peter Ransom? Because that worried me.’

Another wince from Juno, and no attempt to soften it with a smile. ‘That might have been my fault. I think after… after I left him, it was meant to be a reminder that people you trust might betray you and not to let his guard down again. We worked through that but he’s sort of stuck with the name now. Regretted it about two days in.’

‘Idiot.’ I sighed, but so far this all sounded pretty plausible. None of it answered the two questions I actually wanted to know but one of those only Peter could answer. 

‘Just for the record,’ Juno moved so he could make eye contact out of his blind spot. ‘I would never hurt him again.’

‘Sure,’ I shrugged. What did he expect me to do with that promise? We didn’t know each other and he couldn’t predict the future. It was a nice sentiment. ‘I just have one more question, I should ask P but it’ll just come off wrong. It’s about New Kinshasa.’ I watched Juno go rigid tense. ‘I know roughly what happened, the story went around that “the angel of Brahma” broke in with a partner, stole the generator, killed the partner, and then put the generator back. I was in the safehouse before they left so I know P didn’t know the city would fall. I could fill in the gaps, that Mag lied right up to the end, which tracks, and they fought so Peter could put the generator back. Then he ran to avoid the death penalty. All that makes sense to me but I know there’s something I’m missing. P wanted to be famous, wanted to be a revolutionary, and here was his chance. Why did he erase himself?’

Juno wasn’t going to tell me but he knew. I tell from his face, the tight, anxious skin around his eye that my question made perfect sense to him. There was a reason. He didn’t want to give it to me. 

‘Just in the interest of full disclosure,’ I barrelled on though my mouth was getting a little dry at this point. ‘It’s very hard to lie to me. I read faces, voice, body language well. If you’re not comfortable telling me fine but you don’t need to think of a lie. The only reason I’m not asking P is because he’ll take it as an I-Told-You-So and I don’t want that.’

‘Really you’d be well within your rights, Regina.’

Peter _fucking_ Nureyev. My brother. Master thief. Professional asshole. Halfway down the stairs before either me or Juno heard a thing and for some reason he’s changed his clothes? I’m still in that tug-of-war between hugging him and punching him so I folded my arms tight across my chest to keep from doing either.

‘You did tell me so, Reggie,’ he said as he reached us. ‘There’s no point in denying it now. Mag lied. You were right. I was a fool. These are just facts, and getting upset about them now would be a waste of time.’

I didn’t like this light, amused voice he was putting on. I was regretting having ever taking Ransom as alias myself and it had been nearly 20 years. ‘So your father…’

‘Never existed, or at least if he did Mag was an incredible lucky liar,’ he smirked at that. _Actually smirked._ I wanted to put my fist through a wall. 

‘I didn’t want to be right, P,’ was all I could manage though. ‘And that’s why…?’

‘I realised the value in being a lie. Being nameless, being no one, they could never catch me. There was nothing left to catch and so I free.’ 

I realised why my skin was crawling. What surprised me more was how equally uncomfortable Juno Steel looked but I suppose the sentiment was disturbing even without recognising the voice. 

‘Stop it, P.’

‘Stop what, Regina? I am only…’

‘Stop it!’ I shouted, at a far higher pitch than I would have liked. I didn’t like how easily he made me feel like a child. ‘The tone, the smirk, the cadence, the half-laugh under things that aren’t even funny. Really?’

‘I don’t know…’

‘You do,’ I spoke over him. ‘And I didn’t come onto this ship to talk to Mag. So please give me Peter back.’

Peter’s flinch was full body. Juno stepped between us, one hand instantly going to Peter’s and another pressed towards me as if forcing a separation. ‘Okay, let’s take a breath here.’

‘Juno,’ Peter choked out the name. ‘Was I?’

Juno sighed. ‘A little Nureyev, yeah, I noticed it too.’ Then he pulled Peter into a quick, tight hug. ‘It was accident, don’t worry about that right now.’

‘Excuse me, I’m worried about it right now,’ I raised my hand mockingly like asking a question. ‘And how would you recognise that? You didn’t know Mag so has he done this a lot?’

‘I standing right here, you know.’

‘Are you?’ I shot back. ‘Is my brother in this room right now or am I talking to the man who killed him and wears his face?’

Juno fully pulled Peter behind himself at this point and got between us. I hadn’t even noticed myself advancing on him. ‘Hey, that was a step too far. Take. A. Breath.’

It was good advice. I backed off and tried to follow it. ‘We all use aliases and cover stories, this is crime, but that… we’re in private and even if we weren’t that was too deep. You know that right?’

‘He knows, now lay off.’ Juno was starting to lose him cool as well.

‘Juno, you two are cute and all, but I was talking to Peter. I want him to answer, not whoever that was meant to be. I want to know if the reason my brother never found me is because my brother is dead. If that’s the case – fine. I’ve been alone before. I’ll survive. I’ll still do this job and then I’ll leave. Just tell me the truth.’

The smirk was gone. There really wasn’t anything much on his face now. ‘Your brother never left Brahma.’

‘Fair enough.’ 

And I left. 

Buddy was waiting for me in the corridor outside the common room which I should have expected. 

‘How did things go with Pete, darling?’

‘They didn’t,’ I spat back. ‘I don’t know Peter Ransom, never did. You want to tell me about this job or is this actually just my least favourite kidnapping?’

‘Are the lovebirds joining us?’

‘When they’re done cuddling I’m sure they’ll be up. How do you put up with them?’

‘Well I honeymooned on board so I really can’t cast any stones,’ Buddy chuckled and held the common room door open for me. ‘After you, my dear.’

I wanted to ask her things. I wanted to ask her if she actually cared for Peter like she acted. She’d acted like that for me once and look where that got me – a knife in the gut and a wasted opportunity to show the galaxy the Nureyevs were still holding the powerful to account. The thing that bothered me most was that she called him Pete. It made my skin crawl. Had Peter told her to use that nickname or was it a horrible coincidence. Did he feel just as unsettled or maybe he didn’t care at all. He’d moved on and I was the only one living two decades in the past. 

In the end I didn’t ask anything at all. What was the point? Peter wasn’t my problem anymore. This new family could take care of him or not and that would be his own life to deal with. 

The Aurinko Crime Family were a strange lot. Buddy, Vespa and Jet were all legends in their own right but Peter was a ghost, and then there was his protective ex-cop of all things, and…whoever the fluffy one was. 

‘I’m Rita!’ She announced at a pitch that probably communicated more to bats than humans. 

‘What’s a Rita?’ I asked stupidly, completely thrown. 

For some reason that seemed to really tickle her, leading to peels of explosive laughter. Vespa grimaced but stuck it out, only light covering her ear closest Rita. 

‘Rita is our resident hacker and tech expert, Lev,’ Buddy cut in. ‘She worked with Juno for nearly twenty years. Would you rather Regina?’

‘Honestly it doesn’t matter,’ I shrugged. ‘I normally prefer to keep work name and family name separate but…’ I didn’t bother finishing that. Clearly personal life made it into work life on a regular basis with a crew that called itself a family and had two couples plus whatever Jet’s relationship with that car was. 

‘That’s so mysterious!’ Rita beamed at me like I was the most interesting person in the world. It wasn’t unpleasant just a little overwhelming. ‘There was this hero is Attack of the Seventy-Two Android Crime Bosses who was a cyborg caught between two worlds who pretended to be an android with the crime bosses and then a human at home with their family all while trying to fight their way free from a blackmail plot to do with a princess from Jupiter and…’

‘Is the cyborg this scenario me?’ I cut in as she drew a breath. Some part of me wondered if she knew about my replacement organs or if that was just a weird coincidence. 

‘No the cyborg reminds me of Mistah Ransom but so do you a bit so I guess…’

‘Did I hear my name?’

Peter and Juno finally made an appearance at the meeting, neither looking too dishevelled. In fact, even though I thought Peter’s eyes looked a little blood shot I was pretty sure he’d completely redone his makeup sometime in the past ten minutes. Which was ridiculous and for some reason made me angry? I’d have to unpack that later in private. 

‘Boss! Mistah Ransom! There you are! I was just telling Miss Ransom about Attack of the Seventy-Two Android Crime Bosses…’ she must have noticed both of us flinch at “Miss Ransom” and stopped. ‘Would you rather I called you something else?’

‘Well Buddy and Vespa call me Lev, Peter and Juno are probably stuck on Regina, so you and Jet can just pick one of those two and it’s simpler.’

Rita considered the options for a minute. ‘I’m think I’m going to with Miss Regina, if that’s okay with you?’

‘I will join Buddy and Vespa with Lev as this makes the split even.’ Jet had a deep even voice. Shockingly calm for his reputation. ‘Tea?’

‘Sure, thanks, that works,’ I wasn’t sure whose question I was even answering anymore. Something about watching the Unnatural Disaster pour me tea from a little pot had broken my brain. I’d heard rumours he was different from the old Jet but… wow. What did I know though? Maybe he’d always been like this in private. Somehow I doubted it.

‘You sure don’t want something a little stronger?’ Vespa grinned. ‘This is a pretty crazy plan you’ve signed up for and you don’t even know the details yet.’

‘I would love that but eh…’ I patted my side. ‘I forgot I was still faking drinking when I knew you guys. One too many artificial organs for alcohol to be a great idea.’

Vespa winced, opening her mouth with an expression of guilt but I cut her off before she could say something that would embarrass us both. ‘You’re not the first person to stab me, Ilkay, and you won’t be the last. We’re good. Besides the job that went bad, this building came down on me on Io, was nearly two years before I met you. I was healed up.’

Vespa still groaned. ‘Yeah alright, but I’m going to need to take some scans before the job then in case anything happens.’

Peter stirred from his statue-like silence. ‘I thought Reg…Koroleva’s part of the plan involved most being outside the immediate area of danger?’

‘And everything always goes to plan, Peter?’ I snapped back before Vespa could. Then I cursed myself for taking the bait. I had been so studiously avoiding looking at him. 

Vespa laughed, but she wasn’t looking at me. ‘I honestly don’t know what surprises me more, Ransom, that your name really is Peter or that your posh ass really is from the Outer Rim.’

My affected indifference got disrupted again as I choked on the tea Jet has given me. ‘Posh? What?’ I blinked in Peter’s general direction.

‘I’m not going to apologise for enjoying things we didn’t use to have, Regina,’ Peter shot me a quelling glare before blushing almost imperceptibly and turning to the ship doctor. ‘And it’s not my fault that you chose not to believe me, Vespa. I suppose I should just be grateful you find Koroleva a more reliable witness.’

‘Nah you’re both shifty as hell, Ransom,’ Vespa grin was laced with venom. ‘Only difference is she bugs me less.’

Before any of the three of us could that this argument any further, Buddy tapped on the table for attention. ‘Darlings, let’s return to the matter of our job and then perhaps get some sleep finally. Pete, walk us through the floor plans?’

He nodded at her and hopped to his feet like his was throwing a salute. It made my skin crawl a little again but I tried to remind myself Buddy was different. Probably different?

The basic plan was this. The facility was part weapons research part server-farm. It housed experimental prototypes and the most secure data the company had – including financials. While Juno and Buddy posed as arms dealers looking for a meeting with the head of security, Vespa and Peter would sneak inside. Vespa would keep lockout and deal with any guards, Peter would download data about the weapons operating system that Rita could turn into a targeted virus and transfer just a ludicrous amount of creds out of the companies accounts. My job was to plant the bombs and get outside to wait with the detonators. Jet was our eyes outside and getaway driver. Rita monitored comms and watched the security feeds. From jokes the others made, it seemed like Peter had been working on this plan for a while but had originally planned to try doing it alone. 

Rita wriggled excitedly in her seat. ‘Oh my gosh! And Mistah Ransom you’ll finally…’ Juno shot her a look that cut that thought off mid-sentence. ‘…you’ll finally do this job.’ Was a less than convincing finish. 

‘Thank you, both of you,’ Peter looking at Juno with fondness didn’t surprise me but the genuine warmth of his smile to Rita did. ‘It’s fine there’s no point keeping part of the job secret from Koroleva. I have substantial debts that had recently received some… pressure regards repaying.’

‘How does a ghost stay in debt?’ It didn’t make sense. Until it did. I felt sick. ‘Shit. They know your name?’

‘Yes,’ he shifted uncomfortably.

‘You should have told me. Anyone seeking out your name could still… there are things I still keep in that name too, you know.’ Things. People. Vulnerable targets. 

‘You really shouldn’t,’ he muttered back and looked away. I considered throwing something at him but just folded my arms again instead. 

‘Are we stopping to gear up anywhere?’ I asked Buddy to avoid looking at anyone else. ‘I’m going to need a lot more explosives than I keep in my coat to take out this facility.’

‘That’s reassuring, Lev dear,’ Buddy laughed. ‘And yes we are, in the morning I think though. Since it’s nearing 3am I suggest everyone get some sleep. We just need to arrange quarters for our guest.’

‘She can take my room,’ Juno stood up. ‘It’s easier for me to stay with Ransom than for anyone else to move.’

‘Why that way round?’ I wasn’t sure why I bothered asking. 

Everyone laughed and Peter…pouted? Actually pouted. Huh. 

Juno stroked Peter’s hair soothingly. ‘If you’d seen the state of his room you won’t ask.’

Peter stuck out his tongue and the others laughed again as they started to gather up they’re drinks and disperse. Even with the obvious distance between Peter and Jet, and Vespa’s open hostility, there was something bizarrely domestic about the whole scene. I didn’t know how to reconcile it with, well, with anything. 

I poured myself another cup of tea and headed to Juno’s room. He’d left some things out on the bed for me which given the sizes I guessed were actually Peter’s. I couldn’t help having a snoop before sleeping. Juno Steel kept blaster cartridges in the same box as his jewellery. There were bandages in his makeup bag. I felt like that told me a lot about him. He had pictures stuck to the mirror too. Some of people I didn’t recognise. One of Rita and Juno asleep under a blanket lit be a screen and covered in snack packets. Most surprisingly was one of Juno and Peter. I was amazed he’d let one be taken never mind printed and put in a visible place. _First rule of thieving Pete…_ I shuddered and pushed the memory of that voice away. This was probably a good sign all things considered. Juno had his arm around Peter’s shoulders in the picture and Peter had his face pressed into Juno’s cheek with his smile just barely visible. It wouldn’t be a good photo to ID him with from a crime scene but it was proof of a life. That was a compromise I couldn’t help but be relieved he could make. 

There was a knock at the door and I groaned. Pulling it open I expected to see either Buddy or Peter. Juno was a surprise for a few seconds but then I decided that made sense actually. I sighed. 

‘Now I know for a fact Peter didn’t ask you to come here, so…’

‘No, I wanted until he got in the shower,’ Juno rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. ‘I just, you know he didn’t…’

‘Let me stop you there,’ I waved from him to come in. ‘When I told you I’m hard to lie to earlier, I wasn’t just talking myself up. Peter hasn’t successfully lied to me since I was 12. So if what you want to tell me is that Peter was lying when he said he wasn’t really my brother; then I already know.’

‘Then why…’

‘He specifically said that to hurt me. So that I would hate him enough to let him go or whatever dramatic bullshit he’s cooked up in that dumpster fire he uses for a brain.’ I paused to see if the point had reached this lovesick fool yet but he still looked bewildered. ‘You get that’s not really better right?’

‘I get that he’s making decisions for both of you – ’

‘Do you? Get that? Because Peter has done it twice now at least and frankly I’m getting sick of holding up my end of this relationship on my own. If Peter is too afraid to have family or thinks he needs to sacrifice himself on some altar for my safety – fine. He’s a grown man and I frankly just…’ I struggled for the words. ‘Just can’t. Okay?’

Juno didn’t look like he thought it was okay. Sighing I pointed to the picture of them I’d been studying before he knocked. ‘This? This is proof that Peter Nureyev is still able to be a person, even if he’s not able to be a brother. I have someone, out there, that makes me feel that real and seen. All joking aside Juno, I’m delighted he has you. I hope he appreciates you.’

That seemed to amuse him for some reason as he smiled at the picture. ‘He does. No one’s ever made me feel more appreciated in my life.’

‘Good, I hope I get to hear about it if P ever has the good sense to seal the deal,’ then I laughed at the furious blush that surged over Juno’s neck and cheeks. ‘But I can’t force him to see why what he’s done is wrong. Can’t force him to be different and I won’t try. I’m sorry Juno, but the ball’s in his court. It’s up to Peter what happens now.’


	4. Regina: An Unravelling

They say that crime never pays but historically its one of the most consistent things that has. I’m never going to claim that there aren’t risks. I lost a brother, several friends, and three internal organs to the life but I also made a shit ton of money and I like to think I’ve done some good out there. I could wax lyrical about being an equalising force in an unfair galaxy but I’m not in it to be anyone’s Robin Hood. I’ve known a lot of thieves with those particular delusions of grandeur but it’s a trap I won’t fall into.

Here are eight facts about Koroleva Ransom: that isn’t her real name, she’s got a specific and violent skillset, she’s got a personal grudge against certain types of corporations, petty revenge makes her smile, she doesn’t want to bother learning how to make a living any other way, the payday always has to be worth the risk, and Koroleva Ransom has people to protect. 

Here’s three facts about Regina Nureyev: she still has nightmares about a man punching out her teeth only this time no one comes to save her, sometimes she still feels like her own name is stolen goods, and everything that’s true for Koroleva is true for her except the name.

It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, no matter what some people think. I love my job, I’m good at it, and that’s it.

It was one of the things I’d liked about Buddy and Vespa from the start. It wasn’t that they were against doing some good where they could but they loved the work for its own sake too and weren’t shy about taking a nice cut for themselves.

This common ground with them and seemingly Jet too, though he was a difficult guy to read, made the next morning a bit more bearable. Juno was friendly enough but his energy and focus was on Peter who for all his polish and calm was clearly wound tighter than a Venusian clock. The tension between us wasn’t exactly subtle so of course everyone noticed over breakfast but no one said anything. Well no one except Buddy who made some comment about leaving personal feelings aside during the job which I was about to feel insulted by until I noticed she was eying Vespa as much as me and Peter.

The tension very nearly spilled over when I found a flaw in Peter’s plan. It made his eye twitch. He’d missed that the walls of the server room were carbon reinforced and that placing the bombs on the outside of the building just wasn’t guaranteed to get the job done. That meant I had to go in with Peter and Vespa. I saw the hesitation on Buddy’s face for just a second before nodding. The hustle and bustle before the job was intense enough that I even managed to dodge my check-up with Vespa. I’d had enough med bays and hospitals for a lifetime already.

Just like that we were doing final comms checks by the airlock and squeezing a stupid number of people into the Ruby 7.

The. Ruby. 7.

I tried not to freak out when I finally saw it but judging by the amused look on Juno’s face I wasn’t hiding my excitement all that well. Could be worse. In fact it immediately did get worse when we all had to try and fit with my bulky bag of explosives and I ended up practically sitting in Vespa’s lap for the car journey. I made the foolish decision to make eye contact with Peter, the only person alive in the entire galaxy who knew I had had one of her wanted notices as my comms screen background, and he smiled. It was first time he’d given a real smile since that initial moment of reunion and I toyed with the options of bursting in tears, knocking his teeth in, or grabbing something from my bag of tricks to blow us all to hell in orbit. I don’t know what the hell my face was doing at the time but judging by how fast the smile disappeared – nothing good.

Not that it mattered. It was time for work.

Entry into the building went better than expected once Buddy transmitted the cloned code from the key-card she lifted. Juno had leaned his comms against a security terminal long enough for Rita to gain access to the internal cameras so she was able to guide us around guard patrols. It was one of the smoothest entrances I’d ever had on a job involving this many people.

Then we made it to the server room. Vespa guarded the door while Peter and I worked on our separate missions. There were too many charges to set for me to spare any attention to his work at the control terminal, in rapid muttered conversation with Rita on his comms. While I put the beginnings of a trap together on the door to set when we left Vespa chuckled. I gave her a questioning look and she shrugged.

‘Just thought it seemed like old times for a second that’s all,’ the growl in her voice was all bark no bite.

I gasped sarcastically and pulled my shirt up as if checking for damage. There was too much scarring there for the one she gave me to stand out. That made her laugh properly.

‘You’re a lot more…’ Vespa tilted her head. ‘…forgiving than I expected.’

God this crew was emotional. This wasn’t really the time for this conversation but hell we had a minute. ‘Vespa how did the years after you stabbed me go for you and for Buddy?’ I watched her flinch. ‘Yeah. What the hell could I do to you that was worse than that? You screwed up but I was good as new six months later. You…’ I shrugged. ‘So long as you get that you were wrong and why? I’m good. Why would you assume any different anyway? I have a lot of practice forgiving people.’

Something thudded to the floor behind and we both span, weapons drawn. Only to see Peter fumbling on the ground under the terminal for his comms while Rita squawked at him. I tried to rationalise away to bubble of seething rage expanding in my chest but it was proving stubborn.

‘Yeah that look,’ Vespa laughed. ‘That’s more what I was expecting. It’s the same look you give these factories on jobs. Like they said something about your mother.’

‘We’d need a mother for that analogy to work.’ I deflected.

‘Koroleva.’ Peter muttered in a warning tone, not even looking up from the screen.

‘Oh what?! Is being orphans a state secret now, Peter? Like we gave off such stable home-life vibes up until this point and now the illusion is shattered? We’re the only orphans in the whole Outer Rim and they’ll be able to easily track us down now?’ I nearly bit my own tongue spitting the words out. Vespa shuffled uncomfortably at having sparked another of our spats. She seemed to a knack for it.

Peter grit his teeth and for a moment I thought he was going to feign the highroad which would have just pissed me off more. I was almost elated when he asked Rita to wait and muted his comms. I did the same.

‘Koroleva, I don’t know what you want me to say. You spent years throwing our name around and then snap at me last night for having it connected to a single confidential debt as if I’d endangered your life.’

‘Firstly, I didn’t “throw it around” you prick! It’s my name! I’m allowed be called by it if I want to! You’re the one who made that an inter-planetary risk factor. And secondly, do you really believe that I was worried that your debts would lead to me? That doesn’t even make sense! I’m already a fugitive three times over. I have other people to worry about besides myself. If you screw this up, do you really think they’re going to come for you first? No. If they have any intelligence on you at all, then they go after the Aurinkos, starting most likely with Juno.’ Peter recoiled like I’d slapped him. ‘Now Juno and this whole new family you have is pretty tough. And if they do come for me I can defend myself but the people I look after aren’t criminal legends P. They can’t defend themselves or disappear like us. So excuse me if I had a ten second emotional reaction to yet another one your decisions impacting my life without you feeling like I even deserved a heads-up.’

‘They’re not my new family, I’m not replacing – ugh,’ he turned around looking for something to hit but the only things around him were delicate server banks. ‘We can’t do this right now, so why can’t you just be Koroleva and I’ll be Peter Ransom and we can pretend this is just another stop on your heroic crusade through the oppressors of our home.’

He wasn’t expecting me to close the distance between us so quickly so I actually knocked him back a few steps when I shoved him. ‘You actually think that’s what I’m doing don’t you? That I decided to pick up were _you_ left off? You arrogant, self-aggrandising – ’

‘Oy!’ Vespa interrupted. ‘Not to interrupted the show but Buddy is on my comms telling me to tell Ransoms One and Two that while you muted your comms, you are shouting loud enough for the others to hear through mine and also probably anyone else on this floor.’

We stared each other down for a second, him pale, me flushed, before I just snarled and went back to work. I heard his comms click back on to the voice of a slightly awkward-sounding Rita. At least I’d get to blow some stuff up.

We’d lost some time to the shouting so had to work double-time to finish up before Buddy and Juno started their distraction, their own ugly fight in the main lobby. Peter announced he was done transferring the money and installing Rita’s virus. Then right on cue we hear Juno and Buddy yelling down the comms. I waited until the other two got outside before finally rigging the door traps.

‘That’ll set everything off if anyone tries to go in there so we should leave – quickly.’

Peter gave me an incredulous look. ‘You have it set so it can go off while we’re still inside?!’

‘Of course,’ I snapped back. ‘Otherwise the job fails if a goon knocks me out or snatches the detonator.’

‘But you’ve already…’ this seemed to be bothering him more than we had time for. I shoved him again from the small of his back.

‘Move P!’

We ran into trouble almost immediately, because that was just the kind of day I was having. Guards got to our location faster than they should have. I tried not to wonder whether all the shouting had had any effect on their response time. We were nearly out when we got pinned down. We all switched to blasters. Don’t get me wrong, Vespa and Peter can shoot fine but their specialties are up close and personal, so in these messy circumstances they were more laying down cover fire for me than actually clearing a path. I had another dozen grenades on me but this was a pretty small corridor to start blowing holes in. Especially with the heavy duty demolitions on the floor above.

So things weren’t going well is what I’m saying.

Over the comms Vespa and Peter are shouting at Jet to get Buddy and Juno back to the ship, that we’ll meet them there. This is fair, Jet’s a sitting duck out front and something told me Buddy wasn’t up to long sprints these days. They made me laugh though, both of them. Even now they were bickering like two feral cats. Criticising each other’s mediocre shooting and desperately worried about their partners who were probably both safer than any of us. I wondered which of them had more knives hidden on them. I put a laser bolt between a guard’s eyes and decided it was probably Peter but that Vespa’s knives were bigger. Then I laughed again.

‘What is so funny?’ Vespa snapped finally.

I ducked behind a door for cover, still smiling. ‘If I die I’ll you then since you’ll kill me for thinking it.’

Peter stumbled in behind me, out of breath. ‘Reggie, is now the time?’

‘Carpe diem, P,’ I turned my adrenalin fuelled grin on him. ‘It’s always the time.’

He maybe wanted to argue more. That seemed to be the main way to relax in the Aurinko Crime Family but as the best shot in our little trio I decided to refocus on getting out of here. Just as some more guards turned up.

‘Shit.’

And then three of them ate laser before I could blink.

‘What?’

Juno Steel tumbled clumsily from a side corridor, blaster raised. He took out two more before I even processed the shots he was making. Or that he had exactly zero cover. Idiot.

Peter was on the move before me and Vespa, taking advantage of Juno’s cover fire to close the distance and shove his boyfriend behind a pillar as laser scorched the ground where he’d been standing. Vespa and I had got halfway there and we could see the door. Juno and Peter fought loudly while we tried to reach them. Phrases like ‘totally reckless’ and ‘not going to leave you’ get repeated now and again. Vespa rolled her eyes.

We were near enough a door. I could risk it. ‘Get ready to run,’ I whispered into my comms before lobbing the first grenade across the foyer into a barricade of security.

The blast made all of us stagger but we made it outside. We were still a few metres from the official safe distance when I pressed my detonator. That threw all of us off our feet but I figured that things in the building were more dangerous than some tinnitus and bruises.

‘Woo!’ I cheered from the ground, dirt in my face. ‘That’ll wake you up.’

Vespa was shouting something at me but it’d be a few minutes before I hear that well again even with my custom earplugs. Occupational hazard. I do drag myself back onto my feet though and can see the others have done the same, no visible injuries. Unfortunately this also means I see the squadron of private security driving at us from the smoking ruins of the building. This was apparently what Vespa was trying to tell us.

The buzzing in my ears fades as we run. We’re trying to take turns firing behind us to give us some cover but while running and with moving targets, it seems like Juno’s the only one making much impact. I give up on the blaster altogether and start going through my grenades. The ship is up ahead and while they’re gaining on us a little. It looked like we can make it. Jet already has the engines running.

But I’m starting to run out of breath. The side with my surgical scars is starting to get that low, hot ache that usually comes before I cramp up entirely. This robbed me of my usual post demolition euphoria pretty quickly. It’d been 13 years and I still resented the restrictions my injuries put on me not matter who told me that they didn’t define me.

Then I stumbled sideways and Peter reached out to grab my arm. Embarrassed and snarling, I twisted out of his grip. ‘Don’t!’

Annoyance snapped through his calm veneer again. ‘Fine, Regina, fall! I don’t know what you want from me anyway!’

Now Juno was shouting something at us. Probably about keeping moving or not stopping to have another loud domestic during a firefight. I wasn’t really interested in hearing it. Tossing another plasma grenade at our pursuers, I turned away from the explosion, hands over my ears, and then but towards Peter.

‘What I want?’ I spat. ‘What is not to have more scar tissue in my chest than lungs! What I want is to have not to have been abandoned in a Brahman slum twice in my life! What I want is twenty years with my brother back! What I want is for you to have even ever met your n– ’ I stopped.

Peter frowned. ‘My what?’

‘No,’ I shook my head and he didn’t look any less confused. ‘Not while I’m this angry and not here. Back on the ship.’

‘Regina…’

‘On the ship, P!’

This time Juno didn’t wait for us to listen, he just barrelled into us, shouting to get back to the ship. He wasn’t wrong. The last blast hadn’t scared them off for long and I was out of grenades. I could feel Peter’s eyes on me as we sprinted towards our ride out of there. It made me want to snap that he’d be better focusing on escaping but I was too out of breath. Everything hurt.

Like that thought jinxed me I stumbled again. Not even a proper fall, just down to one knee with a jolt, and I managed to stagger back up. It did make me an obvious target though as the guards continued catching up, blasters raised.

Or it would have. Until Peter got in front of me.


	5. Peter: A Sacrifice

My name at the moment is Peter Ransom, among others, and in my adult life I have never asked to be anyone’s hero. I’ll admit to having such aspirations as a child but my awaking to the reality of what a hero complex can do was a sharp lesson I have never forgotten. All of this is just to be incredibly clear that I am not the self-sacrificing type nor am I, by any stretch of the imagination, a hero. I am not even a particularly good person except to a small select number of people. Unfortunately for me, what I am is a debtor.

And there is no one in the galaxy I am more in the red with than Regina.

Not that I – whatever she or Juno say about it – got shot deliberately. It was perfectly possible that I could have managed to pull Regina aside and dodged myself but I think I haven’t been quite as fast since recovering from my broken leg.

Which is how I came to be bleeding rather badly, while my sister and my partner dragged me into the back of the car. I thought idlily with regret about getting blood on the Ruby 7’s seats and a series of expletives from Juno implied I may have accidently expressed the sentiment aloud. Blood loss was holding the pain at a foggy distance so that was a surprise benefit. Regina seemed to have changed her shirt. No…the sleeves were just a different colour. Oh. Damn. Was all that mine? Unfortunate.

Juno was talking to me and I liked listening to his voice but I couldn’t help drifting to sleep.

I came to in the med-bay. It wasn’t a good awakening and it certainly dispelled any ideas that I’d simply dosed off. Coming out of medically induced unconsciousness is a particular feeling that is difficult to confuse with any other. My eyes had that glued sensation and my mouth was far too dry to speak. As usual with these things, hearing came back to me first.

‘This doesn’t make sense, Steel,’ our acerbic doctor seemed to be standing quite close. ‘Scans don’t match up with my records.’

‘What are you talking about?’ There was a tight anxiety in Juno’s voice I wanted to kiss away, tell him I was fine, but frustratingly I still seemed too sluggish to get their attention.

‘Ransom said his debts are medical right? That he got caught in some explosion? He showed us all the bill when he came clean to everyone after the Curemother job. So I used it to update his records but none of the stuff he’s paying for is in his body. I can’t find any evidence of these surgeries either. Is he still playing us?’

‘What?! No! Maybe he just had the scars removed…’

‘Steel! There’s a cybernetic liver listed here and Ransom doesn’t have one! I know because I just stitched his organic one back together.’

‘What did you just say?’ Regina’s voice interrupted whatever spluttering defence my darling detective was about to give me.

Oh no.

The urgency with which I needed to get my voice and range of movement back just increased significantly. My eyes came unstuck enough to see the medbay ceiling – a minor victory.

‘Can I see those records?’ Regina moved closed to Juno and Vespa.

‘Hey now…’

‘I’m not sure…’

‘I’m family,’ she said grimly. ‘I have a right. Please?’

No. I managed to turn my head as Vespa handed her comms over and cough. That got Juno and Vespa’s attention immediately. Regina watched them fuss at me for a second before starting to read.

I grabbed Juno’s hand while still staring at my sister. ‘Don’t,’ was all I choked out.

Juno seemed concerned, upset even, at how agitated I was but my throat was too dry to explain. Vespa shoved me back into the bed with harsh words and harsh tone but I didn’t hear any of it.

She stopped reading. Her hand unconsciously going to her side where I knew the worse of the surgical scars probably lay.

‘These aren’t Peter’s records,’ she told Vespa calmly. ‘They’re mine.’

Our doctor stopped struggling with me. Juno stopped his stream of calming words. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room.

‘Reggie…’ I barely recognised the croak of a voice trying to form some lie or explanation or anything really.

‘They didn’t mistake me for that heiress, did they? You put me in that hospital. You told them who you were and that’s why…’ Regina seemed to get stuck for words, staring at me like a total stranger had taken my place. Vespa seemed equally thrown.

Only Juno seemed unsurprised. He ran his fingers through my hair, shaking his head and honestly, looking as though he was trying not to laugh. ‘You idiot.’ His voice was soft and warm and I… well I think I could get very used to hearing Juno sound like that.

I couldn’t spend too long daydreaming about that though. Not with Regina just standing there clutching Vespa’s comms. The doctor herself seemed to be making a stealthy getaway out of the infirmary and I nearly asked her to take me with her.

‘The job on Io, the trap, it wasn’t a trap?’ She frowned.

‘It was a trap,’ I struggled a little and then Juno helped me sit up, passing me some water. ‘It just wasn’t a trap for you, Reggie. You were right. You had nearly caught up with me. Of course I was younger then and sloppier – ’

‘Nureyev.’ My detective cut off my rambling.

‘Sorry, right. The trap was for me, but you were the one hurt in it. Any doubt I had that you were better off far away from me died the second I realised you were inside when the...while I’d been patting myself on the back for another clever escape.’

‘But if we’d been together maybe we’d have both made a clever escape.’

‘Or maybe I’d have been too injured to save you!’ My mouth was still far too dry for shouting.

‘I never asked you to save me!’ Regina put Vespa’s comms down after looking close to hurling it at the wall. ‘I never asked that of you, P, so you don’t get to throw it in my face.’

‘I am not…’ I took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t trying to throw anything in your face. I just wanted you to understand what I’d been thinking. Why I wasn’t in the hospital when you woke up. I was there, until then, I promise. But once you were stable and recovering…’

‘You disappeared?’

Anyone else could try to push my buttons like that and get nothing. Regina says two words and I flinch like a slapped child. ‘Don’t. Don’t bring him into this.’

‘I wasn’t! This wasn’t a Mag move. Mag would’ve left me under that building and we both know it. No, this has Peter Nureyev’s Mysterious Anti-Hero Complex written all over it!’

‘That’s enough,’ Juno stood up. ‘You’ve got legitimate things to throw at Peter, fine, and you’re family so I can’t throw you out. But he’s hurt and this isn’t the time.’

‘Juno, she’s right…’ I tried to tug him back down onto the bed but he held firm and there wasn’t much strength in my grip yet anyway.

‘She’s partially right, and I think lots of conversations need to be had – but not now. You just woke up from major surgery. Now you’re going to rest.’

Juno stayed, looming over me protectively, as Regina approached. Her arms were crossed tightly and she had that conflicted look she’d been treating me to since we’d gotten to the Carte Blanche. Eventually unfolded her arms and put her arm on my shoulder. Everything from her hesitance to the pained look on her face was so awkward I nearly laughed. But she when finally looked at me properly and whispered ‘thank you’ I was glad I didn’t.

Then she left the room.

The detective relaxed a little and slumped back down on the edge of the bed. He threw me an uncertain glance, worried maybe that he’d overstepped.

‘My hero,’ I teased, hoping to distract him from that train of thought.

Snorting, he rested his face against my neck and shoulder, ever so lightly without shifting his weight. ‘Shut up you or I won’t be able to take my own advice.’

‘Juno,’ I spoke into his soft curls. ‘Just to be clear, my goal was to get myself and Regina out of the way of that shot. I wasn’t…’

‘I know. I’m not really mad,’ Juno still didn’t sit up though. ‘I can’t honestly say I’d have done anything different if I’d seen the shot coming. I just hate seeing you hurt and… Nureyev after you passed out. You were so still. I thought… We live our lives a certain way, I know that, tempting fate or something but… I wasn’t ready for today to be the day.’

There was nothing comforting I could say to make that feeling of dread go away. I’d experienced it a few times myself over the years – at least three times just with Juno himself. And the memory of the Io job was feeling a bit too close to the surface, dragging Regina from the crater, using my jacket just to hold her abdomen together and screaming for someone to help her… well. Best not to open that particular door tonight if I wanted to be able to sleep and recover.

So I focused on Juno instead. Running my fingers along his jawline, pressing his hand to my chest as if to prove the point that I was alive and wouldn’t leave him. I couldn’t promise him forever, neither of us could, but today was not the day.

The next morning I was feeling a lot more human but Vespa insisted I stay where I was and not make her life anymore difficult than I already do. I was almost glad she hadn’t softened her attitude towards overly, at least not anymore than since she stopped outright distrusting before my confessions, since finding out about the reasons behind those debts. I truly did not want to be given any special credit for simply not leaving my sister to die.

Eventually I had Juno alone again. He had climbed into the bed and brushed my hair. I had laughed at him when he offered but honestly it was still too painful to lift my arms above shoulder height and besides… it was pleasant. Feeling his hands at my temples. I didn’t remember anyone doing it before. I assume someone must have, in the very early years of my childhood and those memories lost to fog and imagination but I had no way to know. That made it something particularly special I could association just with Juno. Juno who I loved so dearly, and who’d I’d lied to – again.

‘Love,’ I started nervously after he’d put the brush down. ‘As much as I hate to disrupt how sweet you’re being, if you’re angry at me for all of this, Regina, you can still be angry even though I got hurt.’

He sighed. ‘I’m not angry.’

‘Really?’ The doubt in my voice was clear. ‘You seemed…’

‘Really,’ Juno shrugged. ‘I was hurt. It stung that you didn’t tell me yourself, given how much you know about me. I’m not saying it’s a transaction or something but it’s definitely more than I know about you, even now. You’d had the perfect chance when you told me about the debts but you lied and instead I thought of all the times I’d seen you badly hurt and wondered how you could possibly take.’ Juno’s mouth snapped shut and he shook his head. ‘Sorry, that was a bit much.’

‘No, you’re not, it’s…’ I struggled for the words and resisted the temptation to just ask him to go back to brushing my hair. ‘Telling me how you feel isn’t going to break me. I won’t assume it means you don’t love me until that’s what you tell me. I think we’re, I’m, past that particular insecurity.’

It was something of a relief not be facing Juno while saying all that. I’d nearly said that his feelings wouldn’t hurt me but I think we would have both know that was a promise no one could keep. Honestly was not my natural ally but I was trying. Juno pressed his face into the top of my head for a moment, thinking so loud I could nearly hear him, and I knew he was trying too.

‘You said you didn’t tell me about Regina because you thought it’d remind me of Benten, which is true enough, and that I wouldn’t understand or forgive what you did,’ I’d expected Juno to bring this up at some point but that didn’t stop that fight or flight feeling setting into my legs. As if I could get more than a dozen steps right now. ‘That threw me a little, because I do think there were other things you could have done but… your reasons weren’t crazy and you were really young. It made even less sense to me when I knew the whole truth. It’s the thing that used to frighten me about you,’ he paused as I went rigid, despite reminding myself I had just promised not to over react. Juno pressed kiss to my temple and I half relaxed again. ‘I thought you had me on this pedestal that didn’t make any sense to me. You looked at me like I was so special. Thought I was so much braver and more heroic than I ever did. Then when, when we were apart, I managed to convince myself I was just shit at being loved. That’s true too but… you do assume the best of me and the worst of yourself too often. I didn’t imagine that.’

Juno wriggled out from behind me so that we could actually look at each other which meant I had to stop anxiously gnawing on my lip. ‘Nureyev, you left Regina and that was probably wrong but when she was hurt you saved her, and you stayed away with good intentions. I left Ben too. I left him in that apartment with her so I could have my own life and…’ he looked away. ‘And he didn’t make it.’ I opened my mouth to argue against the implication that Juno had done anything wrong but he smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m not saying, look, this isn’t about me and Benten. I’m just trying to say these things are complicated and I was never going to hate you for not having should some easy solution. All I ever want is for you to trust me.’ 

‘I do,’ I turned to hug him and ended up hissing in pain. Juno hopped out of the bed like he’d been electrocuted as he checked that I hadn’t reopened the wound in my side. Eventually I was able to coax him back into the bed so I could fall asleep with his hands in my hair.

In the end I had to spend five days in the infirmary. All the of crew appeared at some point though I don’t delude myself Vespa would have if she wasn’t quite literally my doctor. Even Jet appeared one day to offer me some tea and inform me that he had been successful getting my blood off the Ruby 7’s seats. Juno had spluttered with indignation on my behalf but I knew Jet’s intention was not to chastise me for being injured in the car but to relieve my mind that the incident could be remedied. My love stared at us both like we were lunatics when I thanked Jet sincerely. I do believe he gets a little jealous of the Ruby sometimes.

Buddy and Rita were the most frequent visitors besides Juno, who was keeping a near constant vigil on me except when I told Rita to drag him out to look after himself. Buddy seemed to hold almost as much guilt about my sister as I did and it was an interesting point of commonality to improve our relationship. Her having been handed a few more pieces of the puzzle to who I was probably helped too. Rita was a surprisingly soothing presence in how unaltered she was by new information or events.

Regina visited once a day and always when someone else was there. She didn’t speak to me so much as find something in the room to do, take away dirty dishes, bring in more water, that sort of thing. It wasn’t nothing but she gave off the distinct impression of someone waiting for something.

I am not a patient man. But I had left Regina waiting for two decades already. I could wait a few more days.


	6. Peter: A Recovery

Recovery from injury is a truly frustrating process. At least with illness there’s often a fogging of the mind that goes along with the other symptoms and makes it easy to ignore the passage of time. With an injury once the anaesthetic has worn off you are simply tired, in pain, immobile and fully aware of how annoying all that is.

My name is Peter Nureyev, to very few people, and as a thief and wanted terrorist this is not my first serious injury. That is not what bothers me. It is just how soon this comes after breaking my leg. Two extended periods of limited mobility make me – well Juno says it makes me angsty.

The experience of being “angsty” was not being helped having my only living family and source of a significant amount of guilt, pacing the ship staring at me like she was waiting for the opportunity to shove me out an airlock.

I can tell you many things that I know about Regina Nureyev. I can tell you that the first thing she ever saw me do was stab a man in the thigh and her only response was to grab my hand afterwards, his blood all over it be damned. I can tell you that the man had just knocked out several of her front teeth so she couldn’t pronounce the T in my first name properly for two years until we saved enough to have them replaced. She said she didn’t have a name and so after a while I gave her one. Technically I gave her two. She doesn’t have a sweet tooth. She prefers green apples to red. She can toss someone twice her size through a plaster wall since she was 13 and she’s overly fond of open flame. I know a lot about Regina even if lots of it are things of no use to anyone, no practical purpose in predicting her thoughts or actions. I imagine she feels much the same.

So as well as I know my sister. I have no idea what she’s thinking now or what she’s waiting to say to me once she’s decided I’m sufficiently recovered. We’ve lived more of our lives apart than we did together after all.

Juno fusses when I’m finally allowed to leave the infirmary and continue my recuperation in the privacy of my own quarters. I think he might have carried me if I’d let him. It was tempting, but the thought of Vespa or Regina’s reaction if we got caught put me off.

Juno had cleared up some of the mess in my quarters in his comings and goings staying there for the last week which was as touching as it was embarrassing. It bothered me how easily anything to do with Juno could bring that immature feeling out in me. While Juno had stayed in my quarters before, the general chaos meant those times were few and far between and we tended to spend our time together in his room, and mine was for my rare times alone. Rarer all the time these days.

Juno continued to fuss even after I was settled in bed. Luckily my reach is still long enough to catch hold of him before he tried to keep cleaning. ‘Love, come to bed for a bit please, we finally have space.’

He did agree to join me, climbing oh so carefully across the mattress, as if I when made of glass.

It made the little huff of surprise he let out when I pulled him onto me, kissing up his neck to base of his chin. Juno braced one arm against the bed to hold his body an inch above mine and his weight off my injuries.

‘Give a lady some warning,’ he laughed and I smiled against the skin where I felt his pulse quicken. ‘Are you sure you should…?’

‘Well I’d ask Vespa her professional opinion but she’d probably kill us both on principle if I did.’ I moved up from Juno’s throat and kissed along his jaw, up to his cheek and ear and into his soft curls. Juno laughed quietly again.

‘It’s just…uh…I know how you get after near death experiences,’ his voice stuttered as he bought his knee up beside me so he would have a free hand to knot into my hair without falling on me.

‘How I get?’ I paused what I was doing to arch an eyebrow.

‘Okay, okay, how we both get,’ he admitted. ‘But all the more reason to – woah hey!’ He shuddered as my hands worked their way under his shirt while he was distracted. There was something very gratifying about hearing him groan needily under my touch after this kind of week.

For a moment, that’s all there is: breath, lips, and holding on tight like we might fall. But then Juno pulled away again.

‘Nureyev! That’s cheating,’ the reproach sounded reluctant so I could at least take comfort in that. My pout was mostly for dramatic effect. ‘I love you and you know I want…uh you’re impossible. We’re going to have to institute an arms-distance rule while you’re healing at this rate.’

‘No!’ The force I said it with and caught hold of Juno’s sleeve was unintentional and once again…a little embarrassing. ‘I mean, that won’t be necessary. If you’re that concerned that I can be patient.’ Juno settled down beside me where I could leaned comfortably against him.

‘I wasn’t going to leave, you know.’

‘I know,’ the humiliation might as well be complete. ‘The last few nights in the infirmary just made me realise, to my surprise, that I’m quite out of practise of sleeping alone that many nights in a row.’

The advantage to leaning on Juno’s shoulder like this is that I couldn’t see him looking at me blushing like teenager even though I still knew he was. He took a long moment before answering, probably biting back the sarcastic banter that would be his first instinct. I wasn’t sure a wouldn’t prefer a little barb to take the edge off my sudden sincerity.

Juno decided to match like with match however. ‘I missed you too,’ he said simply, spoken practically into my hair so quietly I barely heard him.

The silence that came after was the easy, companionable kind when there is nothing that urgently needs to be said.

Eventually though Juno kissed my temples and sat up a little. ‘Nureyev?’

I hummed that I was listening but was unwilling to move from his shoulder.

‘There was something I wanted to talk to you about, something I didn’t want to get into yet when you asked if I was angry with you,’ Juno began uncertainly. The warm, pleasant haze drained away and I joined him in sitting up properly. Moving so suddenly gave me a little tinge in my side but I was already wincing so I doubt it showed on my face. Juno reached for me hand. ‘I didn’t say anything because I’m not mad, it’s just something I’m a little worried about and you said we could talk about it later and well… it’s later.’

Casting my mind back over the last week I tried to remember what topic I would have wanted to push away we hadn’t already covered only to come up empty. The blankness must have been clear in my expression. Juno sighed.

‘The acting, Nureyev,’ he ran his thumb along the back of my hand. ‘We need to talk about the acting.’

I remembered the two slip-ups now.

‘Listen, when you decided to tell the others about the debt but not why your identity was such a big deal, you know I disagreed. I think you can trust this family and that you’re never going to get past this thing with Vespa and maybe Jet until they know who you are but it’s also your decision.’

‘Juno…’

‘I’m not trying to convince you right now, just that it’s connected,’ his squeezed his fingers around my slightly. ‘It’s hard, watching you straining in stay in character every day. Not because you’re so different that I’d love you any differently, but because I can see it wearing you out, and knowing that I think the others would actually like Peter Nureyev a lot better than Peter Ransom. Because Peter Nureyev is pretty amazing and I feel selfish keeping him all to myself.’

I laughed a little at that, pulling Juno’s palm to lips for a moment. It didn’t change what I needed to do but it was still very nice to hear. And I told him so, which made him laugh too.

‘Good,’ Juno rolled his eye, but all the barb was spoiled by that soft, flickering smile I loved so well. It faded after a moment though, as they sometimes still did, and I was left even more bereft at its disappearance than I would have thought possible. ‘Hey, but seriously Nureyev. I’ve worried about this for a while before your sister showed up but the way you leaned in when you were stressed… that scared me for a minute.’

Tipping my head back against the wall meant I could avoid seeing that fear and worry on my love’s face for a minute. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, ‘reyev,’ he pulled me closer. Kissing my eyelids when I still wouldn’t look at him. ‘I’m not asking you to be sorry. It’s not something you’re doing _wrong_ exactly. I get it. I mean it’s not a coping mechanism I ever used, I was always more really aggressively myself even when I should reign it in, but I get it. But when you were talking to Regina like…’

‘I know,’ I didn’t want to hear him say it. ‘But it’s not that simple. It’s not all an act. The truth is I have a lot in common with Mag, always have.’ I winced as the words came out.

Juno’s outraged look on my behalf against set me off laughing again. ‘That’s not – ’

‘Juno, I know how you feel about him. But you have a warped perspective. You saw the worst day. I’m not claiming he was perfect but he did,’ I took a deep breath and decided to say what I hadn’t ever admitted aloud. ‘He did love me. Mag was my family in every way that matters, just like Regina, and I can’t deny him or his influence to fit a neater narrative. Did he lie to me, manipulate me, and push me too hard from too young? Probably. But those were dangerous days on Brahma and everyone grew up fast. Even Regina, who never even liked him much, would tell you that Mag cared. He really believe in what he was doing. Saw himself as a sort of folk hero I guess. It was a nice dream while it lasted.’

It hurt less than I expected to say all that to Juno. The night, months ago now, when we’d finally discussed what he’d seen in mind back in Miasma’s tender hospitality, had been hard. There had been a certain relief though, in knowing that Juno had seen the whole story for himself and that I wouldn’t have to tell it, wouldn’t have to try to make Juno understand that moment in that sickly red room. So we’d said very little about it other than for him to say he regretted that I’d gone through that, that I’d been young and alone and I’d kissed him silly rather than burst into tears. It’d gone pretty well all things considered.

Juno listened now though, knowing that none of it was easy to speak aloud. There was still an angry crease to his face that I knew wasn’t directed at me but at a thief long dead. Even as I asked him not to resent Mag some childish part of me enjoyed the protective streak in Juno. He trusted in my competency so I didn’t get to see it often unless I was injured.

‘Okay,’ was all he was willing to compromise on Mag right now but I would take it. ‘But even side-stepping the argument about how like Mag you are or aren’t, I don’t know what you’re getting at?’

‘Oh,’ I frowned. I’d almost forgotten the point I’d been trying make once I started thinking about Mag. ‘Well it’s about Regina really more than Mag. It’s just, Regina was the first person I ever “saved” for lack of a better term. Mag had set me on my path of thinking I was going to be some great hero and next thing I know I’m stabbing some animal beating a small girl in the street. Of course I’m only nine years old so I immediately panic and Regina has to drag me out of there.’ That memory, as awful as it is objectively speaking given that it’s two children covered in blood and running from violence, always makes me smile. ‘Despite that she still looked up to me. That’s when we sort of adopted each other. I don’t even remember if we ever even spoke about it? Just one day, one of us introduced the other as a sibling and we just went with it from there. And, as self-aggrandising as it sounds, I always felt like a hero with Regina around, though she made sure my head didn’t get too big from it.’ I let myself smile at that.

‘Your head is perfectly sized and we both know it,’ Juno whispered so we could both laugh in earnest.

‘Sorry I keep rambling and forgetting what I’m saying,’ I shook my head in frustration but Juno caught hold of my cheek. He kissed the end of my nose which set us off giggling again.

‘I want to hear all this, take your time, when I say I’m worried about you not sharing or that you don’t want to be known, this is that kind of thing that fights that.’

‘I know,’ I leaned back again, away from his gaze that told me he knew me better than anyone. It almost burned. ‘But my point is, seeing Regina again. I knew all I could do was disappoint her. She hadn’t seen me since, since I was still her hero. So I thought…’

‘You thought if you hurt her all at once before you could disappoint her over time that would be better?’ There was something odd in Juno’s voice so I turned back to him.

It wasn’t clear whether Juno was about to laugh or cry. Then his words and where I’d hard something similar before sank in and my heart dropped into my stomach with the thud of closing hotel room door. ‘Oh shit.’

Then he did laugh. It burst out of him with the same suddenness as his smiles. Escaping him for a moment of ecstatic freedom and then gone.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he gasped, wiping his eye. ‘Sorry that’s not funny, like at all, but your face and…’ Juno trailed off sobering and looking more than a little worried he’d hurt my feelings.

My feelings were still reeling too much to be hurt so I spent a few seconds just opening and closing my mouth at him like a concussed fish.

It seemed maddingly appropriate then, that this was when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. Without waiting for Juno to even get all the way off the bed, Regina pushed the door aside and stepped in. She was about to say something but then looked around my quarters’ admittedly chaotic appearance and burst out laughing. Apparently my failures were having that effect on people today.

‘Sorry,’ she covered her mouth. ‘I just get what the others were snickering about now. Wow, P, this is bad.’ Regina stayed near the doorway, a question in her glance to me.

‘Come in,’ I pushed myself up a little straighter against the extra pillows Juno brought me. ‘And I’ll have you know that the mess…’

She just chuckled again. ‘No I get it really. The first time I settled down anywhere rather than always being on the move; mine might have been as bad except that I never had your, uh, fashion consciousness.’ Regina smothered another laugh and then sobered a bit, walking to stand just a few feet from the bed. ‘That’s not what I’m here for though.’

Juno moved between us, which was as sweet as it was unnecessary.

‘Easy lover boy,’ Regina rolled her eyes dismissively. ‘I come in peace. I think if I even tried any more shouting I’d lose my voice anyway.’

‘It’s fine, Juno,’ I pulled him back to sit beside me. ‘We’re due this conversation.’ I wasn’t sure how much energy I had for it on the heels of my talk with Juno but Regina was owed this much.

She steeled herself, eyed fixed somewhere around my left ear. ‘I don’t know how to process how I feel about you did. Either on Io or yesterday. But especially Io. It was insane and reckless which terrifies me because the one thing I trusted was your self-preservation instincts. It’s also unfair in ways I don’t… so I told Buddy I wasn’t accepting my share of the job.’

I groaned. ‘Reggie! You don’t…’

‘No.’ Regina just shook her head again. ‘This was never your debt to carry P. You’ve been paying it off for years. It’s only fair I at least put in work to get it over the line. And if they try to exploit what they know for more, you are going to tell me. We will deal with that together.’ I opened my mouth but she just glared. ‘That wasn’t a question. Buddy and Vespa know how to get in touch with Koroleva now and…’ she softened.

‘Look I’m not going to deal with that right now. Instead I have something to tell you that might piss you off, but…’ Regina made eye contact with Juno briefly again. ‘That isn’t the intention of telling you, okay?’ She paused until I nodded. ‘You know I kept your name for years after you left but when I got caught in that explosion I stopped. I became Koroleva Ransom in all work things. I didn’t erase Regina Nureyev though. I still wanted to be her, in private at least. Then I met Angie. She’s nuts, a force of nature and I fell in love with her faster than…’ she laughed, soft and fond. ‘Anyway, things got serious fast when I had to help her out of a bad situation with her family. I wanted her to love me, not Koroleva, and she did. And then…when we got married – ’

I hadn’t meant to interrupt her. Whatever small noise I made was completely involuntary. I certainly didn’t have the right to be surprised Regina was married and I hadn’t known. Her having this kind of life away from me had rather been the point. But I made the mistake of catching my sister’s gaze and struggled to swallow the sharp pain of it.

Blessedly she carried on without comment. ‘When we got married, well Angie hated her family and there was some baggage around the name so…I gave her mine. Ours. I didn’t know how you’d feel about that. I tried to guess, would you hate me giving away the only thing you’d ever had, or would you like the idea of me making the family a little bigger. You weren’t there to tell me. So I decided to just do the thing that made me happy.’

‘That’s…’ my voice stuck in my throat. ‘Like you say, it wasn’t my choice, but you choosing what makes you happy is what I would have wanted.’

‘And she does,’ Regina smiled. ‘Angie Nureyev makes me very happy.’

That would take some getting used to.

‘And then a few years ago…’ apparently we weren’t done. Regina edged closer to the bed and perched on the very end next to my foot. ‘We…well we gave the name to someone else…’ she laughed again. ‘My daughter turns eight soon.’

Oh.

‘Oh!’ Juno got there first. ‘So when you said you wanted him to have met his…’

‘Niece, yes, thank you, Juno,’ I winced. ‘I’m…if I apologise again are you going to smother me in my sleep?’

‘Yes, probably,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘I tell her about you, her Uncle Peter. I use it as a way of telling her about my adventures, jobs, while making them seem safer, more fun and child-friendly. Angie says it’s probably not healthy to insert you fictionally into my life like that, especially now she’s old enough to ask after you. Excuses are going to run out eventually.’

‘Oh,’ there really wasn’t anything to say to that was there. I had wanted this for her. This had been the plan and it had apparently succeeded with flying colours. It wasn’t meant to hurt anyone but us. ‘What’s her name? Your daughter.’

This, for some reason, sent Regina into mild hysterics. When she was done giggling she wiped her eyes and moved up the bed, dislodging Juno from my side. He let her and moved around to my other side.

‘You’re going to hate it, I think,’ she told me, still smothering more laughter. ‘But bear in mind that I was mostly convinced you were dead when I named her so I never thought I’d actually have to look you in the eye when you found out I’d gone soft.’ Regina smirked at my confusion. ‘Petra.’

‘What?’

‘Her name’s Petra Nureyev,’ my sister laughed again. ‘And she’s already too good for either us. Seven years old and can do perfect handstands and name fifty kinds of beetle. Some days she wants to be a pilot and sometimes she wants to be an acrobat. Angie votes acrobat but I think having a getaway driver in the family might…Peter? Are your stitches okay? You’re crying.’

Was I? I touched my face and it came away wet. Some distant part of my mind automatically worried about makeup I wasn’t wearing. I hadn’t put it on when it was just Juno, and somehow even after all this time, Regina counted to. Because of course she did.

‘I’m fine I just…’ there weren’t words. ‘Thank you.’

‘For making you cry?’ She asked nonplussed.

‘For telling me, for telling her, for including me in her life even when I…’ I tried to string my thoughts together coherently. Juno squeezed my hand encouragingly. ‘I’m very stupid sometimes.’

That made both of them laugh. Juno kissed my hair. ‘There’s no safe answer to that.’

‘I thought for a long time, until I met Juno, that I wasn’t… real anymore. Whoever Peter Nureyev had been, I wasn’t that anymore and trying to be would be a poor imitation. I’d left you behind to keep you away from the fallout and there was no one else. That isn’t how it works though, is it? You always made me a real person.’

It seemed I’d finally managed to leave Regina at least half as tongue-tied as I’d been. She shook her head me and leaned against my shoulder for a moment. ‘Idiot.’

‘Do you have pictures?’ Juno leaned across me. ‘Of Petra?’

She smiled and pulled out her comms. ‘I only bring one on work trips, encrypted, mixed with a bunch of random photos of strangers, just in case but yeah. Hang on.’ It took her a minute to find it. A broad shoulder woman, with black curly hair, sat in a warm, cluttered kitchen with a girl of about six sitting on her shoulders waving her hands. My throat got even tighter.

I had been trying to come to turns with how Juno and Buddy talked about our little family for months. I hadn’t made a good start and I still struggled to see it as they did which I knew disappointed Juno even though he’d never say so. For a moment though, sitting with Regina and Juno, looking at a woman and little girl I’d never met who had my name, I thought it perhaps wasn’t that hard to understand family.

‘They’re both beautiful,’ I choked out.

‘They’d love to meet you,’ her voice was very low. Almost a whisper. ‘If you ever made your way to Mars.’

Both Juno and I jerked around in surprise at that.

‘You’ve been living on Mars this whole time?’ I was glad he asked it as I just couldn’t quite manage it. ‘Please tell me not…’

‘In Hyperion City? Why? Why are you two laughing? Peter? What the hell is wrong with both of you?’

Recovery from injuries and everything else the universe throws at you is a tedious experience. However it does me good to remember now and again that the universe is a ridiculous place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if that's a strange and abrupt ending folks! I really wasn't sure how to finish it so it got a little silly. Hope you guys have enjoyed this session of intense projection of personal traumas onto fictional characters today


	7. Juno: An Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided to end this fic with a surprise epilogue for more notes see end

Sometimes people aren’t great at doing what they want or what’s good for them. I know, I know, hypocrite of the century Juno Steel speaking but that just means I really know what I’m talking about, right? And anyway, I’m getting better. Look at me now, I’m travelling the galaxy with a family I chose, my best friend and… him.

Peter Nureyev.

I assumed exposure therapy would work on whatever it is about Nureyev that makes my already shitty lungs give up altogether sometimes. That was clearly a pipe dream since I have to do a manual restart on breathing every time he walks into a room unexpectedly, or brushes his hair, or wears that one sheer shirt that – anyway. That’s not relevant right now.

It’d been an amazing year. Not perfect but real things aren’t perfect and this was real. It’d been a few weeks since Nureyev’s sister, Regina had left and we’d set about tying up loose ends from our last two heists. When we felt safe enough we finally had that party to celebrate all we’d managed to do together. I danced with Rita and Nureyev. Buddy and Jet argued about him taking over the ship if her and Vespa ever did actually retire, again. Vespa watched them and laughed. She didn’t seem convinced Buddy could retire but I could tell she really wanted to try.

That’s how it got decided we’d all have some shore leave and a few weeks’ vacation before we picked our next move. Buddy and Vespa would finally get that real honeymoon. Jet was being cagey about his plans after when we dropped the newlyweds off. Rita was so excited to go back to Hyperion to see Franny and her mom and…

And me and Nureyev were quiet. Jet and Rita had noticed of course but they knew us well enough that they would wait until the last minute before bothering to push. I was worried. Not about me, though I was torn about whether I wanted to visit Mars again. Leaving had been such a huge wrench it had felt completely final. Going back after only a year seemed, anticlimactic? Like I’d failed somehow? Failed what I wasn’t sure.

I liked who I was away from Mars a hell of lot more than anyone I’d ever been in Hyperion so why risk it? What if we landed, I got that dust in my nose and I regressed or something? It was stupid. I knew it was stupid so I was mostly ignoring it. I just wanted to be where Nureyev was. He’s turned me into such a sap.

Which currently was sitting beside me in bed pretending to read in total silence. I knew he was pretending because when Nureyev was really engrossed in reading he slouched or leaned against me. If he was focusing enough to keep his back straight he was just holding the book as a prop so I wouldn’t comment on him thinking so loud. Also he’d stopped remembering to turn pages a few minutes ago.

This was fine, he was entitled to sit and think if he wanted without me bothering him but him being so quiet had me worried. Normally if he thought we even had a day of shore leave, he was talking at the speed of sound about all the things he wanted to show me and how much he’d spoil me until I was squirming and griping. Now maybe I was just feeling needy but it struck me as odd that we get weeks of time to ourselves and Nureyev had no plans at all.

And then there’s Mars. I’m not the only one who might be worried about being back there. I wanted to know if it was bad memories or if he was genuinely worried it would change things between us being back there but I didn’t know how to ask. Not when I’m the one those bad memories centre on.

And there’s Regina. Finding out that Nureyev’s sister and her family had been based out of Hyperion for the entire time we’d known each other had been wild. Even Regina was pretty stunned when we finally calmed down enough to explain why we’d descended into slightly manic nervous laughter at her address. _Almost enough to make you believe in fate or something_ , she’d said shrugging like it didn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t.

Nureyev loved his sister, I knew that. Getting her back in his life was not something he’d ever expected and the thought of having a niece he’d never even met gave him a look of terror and shame combined that I knew well from the mirror. The thought of meeting her family, arguably _his family_ , scared him badly.

But he’d promised her he wouldn’t disappear this time. The three of us sitting on the bed like a mad, middle-aged slumber party were the only three people alive who really understood what that promise meant to Nureyev. So Regina had just nodded, and gave him a comms number and address in Hyperion. Nice neighbourhood, but not too nice, the people were still normal. Normal for Hyperion. Oh hell –

‘Hey hon,’ I slowly put a hand on Nureyev’s wrist, snapping him out of the intense staring match he’d been having with page 53 for a the last few minutes. ‘Can we talk for a minute? About where we’re going to go?’ Then that insecurity set in again. ‘Assuming that you want to go somewhere with me and you’re perfectly entitled to want your own spa –’

Nureyev cut my rambling off with a kiss and I relaxed. ‘Of course I want to be with you, love, so long as that’s what you want too,’ he whispered against my cheek. He was damn distracting without even really trying either.

‘Well Rita’s getting dropped off in Hyperion tomorrow,’ I started again, Nureyev tensing up beside me. ‘And if we don’t say something to Jet by breakfast you know he’s going to tell us something tactless but insightful that will haunt us for months so…’ he didn’t take the bait. _Openness, Steel, vulnerability. Come on you can do it._ ‘I’ve been a bit nervous about the idea of Hyperion, Mars at all really. It was such a big deal to leave, it seems like cheating to just go back.’ I laughed at myself a little nervously and hoped my partner might choose this moment to jump in with a thought.

Instead Nureyev just gave that like encouraging hum he did when he was listening and wanted me to keep going, which was unfair.

‘Hey, Nureyev, have you called Regina since she left?’ I changed tactic. If he wouldn’t talk about me then we’d talk about him.

‘Twice, once to make sure she got back alright and again when we finished up to let her know it was over. She doesn’t know we’re near Mars. I don’t even know that she’s on Mars right now.’

‘You could send her a message and find out?’ To which he just hum again.

‘Honey,’ I said with a note of impatience because that usually made him laugh and call me _Dahlia dearest_. ‘Talk to me.’

Nureyev nuzzled his face against my chest and for a second I thought he was going to pretend to fall asleep to get out of this conversation but when he settled on my shoulder his eyes were open. ‘On one hand, I don’t want to go to Mars. I don’t exactly have the best associations with your home since… the last time. And some irrational part of me sees Hyperion like this set of jaws ready to snatch you away from me again.’ Both of us took a second to wince at that but before I could say anything reassuring he was off again. ‘I don’t really believe that, Juno, truly I don’t but I still _feel_ it, which is infuriating by the way. On the other hand, I know that I owe this to Regina. Passing by an opportunity to meet her family like this would be unforgiveable. All my excuses have run out now, but I’m afraid.’

‘Of which part?’ I asked after waiting a beat to see if he’d carry on.

That earned me a soft chuckle. ‘All of it? Juno,’ Nureyev groaned and pulled away from me, dragging his hands over his face as if exhausted and then through his hair. ‘I am not, by anyone’s standards, a _family man_. I could be one, construct someone who knew family and understood it, but Regina doesn’t want that. Her wife isn’t a mark she’s…my sister-in-law.’ A deep sigh followed that. ‘Peter Nureyev does not have a sister-in-law and family obligations it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t fit.’

‘Is it that it doesn’t fit or do you not want it?’ There really wasn’t a diplomatic way to ask that question and we both knew he needed me to ask it.

He still hissed a pained breathe through his teeth when I did though. ‘I don’t _not_ want it. I just can’t picture it, can’t prepare for it, can’t…’ Nureyev sat up straight enough to stare at me desperately. ‘I have a niece, who’s named for me, and does handstands. I’m not the kind of man who gets to be an uncle. I…children…’ he’s just unravelling now so I stop him.

‘Hey,’ I pulled myself close enough that I was practically in his lap. ‘Now I know this is a little hypocritical coming from the mayor of self-deprecation city over here but I really don’t like it when you talk about yourself like you’re a live grenade.’ That got another laugh. ‘I love you, I want you to feel comfortable so help me understand; is the problem that you don’t want to have to change because of this or are you afraid that something’s going to go wrong? I’m not really keeping up.’

Nureyev huffed in frustration. ‘Juno.’ He reached behind him to the bed’s headboard and pulled out a concealed throwing dagger. Then another one from under the bed and another from behind the bedside locker. All three sat piled onto of the blankets over our knees and he gestured to them as if they proved his point. ‘Are these the habits of someone you would introduce to your child? Would Regina’s daughter be safer if her… if her Uncle Peter was a whimsical story rather than a dangerous reality?’

And there it was. A fear so familiar to me it stung. Just another sad thing we had in common like parents we couldn’t trust and what it’s like to be a child that has to fend for themselves, the feeling of real hunger. The assumption that how you were raised and how you live means you would _just like them._ This is not something I want to talk about. It’s not something we probably would have talked about for a long time if this hadn’t come up. I know all the things people have said to me that I didn’t quite believe, I can’t imagine they’d do Nureyev any good either.

‘Nureyev do you think I’m too dangerous to be around kids?’ Different approach so.

He looks as if I’d just asked him did he think it was a nice night to jump out the airlock. ‘Juno! What? Of course n–’

‘Of course not,’ I finished for him. Then leaned my side of the bed and pulled my spare blaster out from under the mattress and a sealed bottle of whiskey from all the way under, wrapped in an old shirt I’d wrecked. I throw the blaster on top of Nureyev’s knives but put the whiskey bottle right into his hands so he can see it’s dusty and hasn’t been opened. ‘What about now?’

‘Juno,’ he look stricken. ‘Of course not, but…’

‘That’s there for emergencies,’ I point at the bottle. ‘So I don’t try and find anything worse if it ever gets that bed. Controlled descent, just in case. And that,’ I point to the blaster. ‘Is because one night a shapeshifting robot kidnapped you while I was sleeping across the hall.’ Nureyev started to say something but I kept talking over him. ‘These,’ I picked up one of the knives. ‘Are to protect us from the dozens of real, non-imagined enemies we have but also because we’ve had a lot of people hurt us and it’s okay to take reassurance of the lethal, pointy kind when you need to sleep.’ And I handed the knife to him as well.

Nureyev sat there looking at them in his grip and for a moment I was terrified he was going to cry. Nureyev didn’t cry very often, unlike some ladies who only have half as many eyes to do it with, and the few times I’d seen it he’d retreated into himself for days afterwards. He didn’t though. Instead he carefully put all the things we’d squirrelled away around our ridiculously well-armed bedframe onto the floor and kissed me very softly.

‘I do hate it when you’re right, my love,’ he murmured against my lips, soft and silken enough I could have fainted.

‘You love it,’ I shot back, grinning a little.

‘I love you.’

There was a lot more kissing after that and I nearly forgot why I’d started this conversation entirely once Nureyev got his hands under my shirt but eventually I got my head together enough to remember.

‘Hey, hey,’ I pulled out of his grip a little. ‘That’s very distracting but we really do have to make a decision.’

He sighed. ‘I just don’t know, Juno, but I don’t want to stop you visiting home if you want to go with Rita.’ His face scrunched up quite a bit when he said, like maybe he wanted to stop me from doing that quite a bit.

‘I’m not all that interested in visiting Hyperion without you,’ I shrugged. ‘I can’t say that I haven’t seen it a bit like, what did you say? Jaws that’d eat me up? Some stupid part of me thinks we’re going to land, I’m going to take one lungful of Martian air, empty that bottle and find some fast traffic to play in.’ Nureyev flinches and I kiss his cheek apologetically. ‘I’m just saying I’m not mad if you’ve thought that too but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I wouldn’t mind checking in on Mick and Alessandra but I also…’ I could feel a blush creeping up my checks. ‘It’d be nice to introduce you to them I guess.’

That softened some of the anxiety on his face. ‘I’d need you there too, you know, if I was going to call Regina. If you were comfortable with that? I’m sure Regina wouldn’t mind, she seemed to understand we came as a bit of a package deal now when we last spoke.’

I chuckled. ‘Yeah she used that classic Nureyev misdirect technique on me when I tried pinning her down. Kept talking about me “meeting the in-laws” already. Should’ve figured she was thinking about you and her wife really.’

Making Nureyev blush is a rare gift so I shut up for a second to revel in it. After that he groaned and grabbed his comms. I watched him type out a quick message, apologising for the late hour (not that it was as late on Mars) and the short notice. It took just three hesitations to press send. He got another kiss as a reward. The comms beeped shockingly quickly with a reply from Regina, assuring him she was in Hyperion and that if he didn’t stay with them in the guest room and she’d hunt him down and gut him. Her enthusiasm seemed to relax him a little. After a little more talking, and him reminding me that I had now promised to introduce him to the infamous Mick Mercury, which I instantly regretted, we turned out the light and got ready to sleep.

In the dark, in a low hush like maybe he thought I was already asleep, Nureyev whispered. ‘I know I shouldn’t try to be anyone else with them, I know, but… knowing Regina she’ll have talked me up into something that I can’t live up to. What if she’s disappointed?’

I got the impression that the last she wasn’t Regina or her wife. ‘If you’re the Peter Nureyev with them that you are with me, there’s no way in hell anyone could be disappointed. Now go to sleep go else we’re going to be zombies tomorrow and we need to get up early to pack.’

Despite my rare occasion of good sense, we were still pretty tired the next morning at breakfast. Jet didn’t seem overly surprised when we announced we’d be getting off at Hyperion too and this suited Jet as he could collect half the crew in one go two weeks from now. Rita was delighted and talked at great length about how we should all go out from dinner or to the cinema some night once she’d gotten caught up with her mom and Franny. I kept my responses vague. I didn’t want to commit to anything until we knew how we handled being back and meeting Nureyev’s family. Oof. Saying that would take some getting used to. I couldn’t even imagine how he felt about it.

Packing in a hurry is always a pain in the ass but Nureyev is very good at it so he had time to help me too. Someone we had everything together on time to meet the others at the airlock and for Jet to drop us into the city. It felt bizarre watching Jet drive away. Even as he said that he’d see us in two weeks some part of me was sure I’d never see him again, that this was us dumped and the dream of the grand space adventure was over. I’d been spit back out where I belonged. But I knew better than to let myself drift too far down that rabbit hole.

Then we said goodbye to Rita, which strangely didn’t feel as fraught. I never doubted her finding me again. Then it was just me and Nureyev in a taxi to an address he’d been sent in a code he and Regina had made up as kids. His hands were shaking.

‘Honey,’ I said sensing the need for distraction and endearments always got his attention.

‘Yes, my love?’

I snorted. ‘I was just thinking. I know it’s not your favourite thing but should I switch to call you Peter while we’re here? It’s just since everyone there is going to have the same last name it could get a bit confusing.’

Nureyev pulled a face. ‘Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I don’t feel quite as strongly about it as I did when you first asked me. Hearing Regina say it helped it feel more like, well just a name I suppose. I suppose since the rest of the crew besides Buddy prefers to call me Ransom, I haven’t had much chance to get used to it.’ He shrugged. ‘I think I still prefer the other way we’re alone though. It’s how you say it.’ Then he kissed me. Which turned out to be very, very distracting until the driver pointed cleared his throat at us and we sprang apart like guilty teenagers.

We were there.

I let Nureyev fuss fixing his makeup (that I was proud to have mussed) while I grabbed our bags. I hadn’t even made it back to him yet when I tensed to high alert as a woman sprinted towards him.

Regina Nureyev didn’t look as much like Koroleva Ransom as I’d expected. She wasn’t as into personas or roles as her brother but obviously I’d overlooked something. Where Koroleva had been all green and charcoal, slicked back hair, leather and intimidation, this Regina wore a dark blue shirt and soft fabrics and sandals. Sandals that slapped a little comically off the sidewalk before she threw herself at Nureyev. Regina was a lot more open with her affection than Koroleva too. Her brown hair was loose around her shoulders. Nureyev swung her around a little in her tackle of a hug, possibly just to break her momentum so they didn’t both fall.

‘Nice to see you too, Reggie,’ he laughed, setting her down.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d…’ she smiled. ‘I’m just glad you’re here.’ Regina turned to me as I caught up to them. ‘Are you a hugger, Juno Steel?’

‘Not even a little bit,’ I said as I opened my arms for one anyway. That made both of them laugh.

Regina’s apartment was on the top floor of the building behind us. It was nice and the elevator was clean, that was really something in Hyperion. Nureyev was telling a story from the party we’d had before deciding to take this vacations and his voice was getting a bit louder and faster from nerves. Pointing it out then would just have made his anxiety worse.

The apartment door is wide open which stop both me and Nureyev in our tracks, alert for danger. I curse leaving my blaster in its lock case at the bottom of my bag but I didn’t want it loose around a kid. Regina sees our faces and roles her eyes.

‘Unclench both of you,’ she snorted. ‘I left it open when I went down to get you. I wasn’t bothered finding my keys and Angie was there to guard the homestead from our bloodthirsty elderly neighbours.’ Her tone was teasing but understanding. She wasn’t surprised by the reaction. I wondered if it ever still happened to her or if someday you really could learn to live the job with the job.

She didn’t surprised or hurt by Nureyev’s panicked hesitation in the doorway either. Regina squeezed his elbow and led the way, calling out as she did. ‘Sweetie, they’re here!’

The woman who came out of the kitchen did not look many people called her “sweetie” and lived to tell about it. The picture we’d seen didn’t do justice to how tall she was standing up. Not many people were eye-level with Peter Nureyev. Unlike Nureyev though was built like a boxer. In a red sun dress the solid muscle of her arms was on full display. Regina winked at me in a gesture I can only guess was to communicate _I guess we both like them lethal_. There was no safe reaction so I just blinked at her, which in my case is a little like a wink anyway.

Angela Nureyev was not a hugger. She shook both our hands vigorously though. Nureyev was struggling with words a bit still so I pushed myself into his usual role, grin and all.

‘It’s really nice to meet you Angela, this is a lovely place.’

She gave my shoulder an amiable shove. ‘Angie, come on, and thanks. We’ve been here, what babe? Six years?’

‘Petra was just walking so, yeah,’ Regina smiled at some memory. ‘Speaking of, come into the kitchen you two and I’ll go get her. She’s a bit nervous.’

‘She’s not the only one,’ Nureyev said in a hushed whisper, meant only for me but I spotted Angie’s lips twisting into a suppressed smirk.

It was the same kitchen from the photo Regina had shown us and Angie offered to make us some coffee. I said yes, because the routine might help reduce the tension but I secretly didn’t think caffeine and Nureyev would be a good combination right now. He was doing that thing he did where he studied a room intently and sat nearest an escape route, a spring ready to suddenly uncoil.

I carried most of the short conversation with Angie while she made us coffee. She was from Pluto originally and seemed to think the fact that Nureyev and I had met in Hyperion was nearly as funny as we had. Then there was the sound of someone clearing their throat over our shoulders.

Regina was back with a girl standing just behind her. She had a bob of dark curls and was clearly trying to pretending she wasn’t hiding at all but had just spotted something very interesting on the back of her mother’s shirt. Since Nureyev seemed to have found the shelf just to their right equally fascinating there was a quiet moment. I considered kicking him but reminded myself to be considerate. So I just carefully laid a hand on his arm to remind him I was there.

Nureyev remembered just in time that he was the adult in this encounter and tilted his head so he could see the kid better past Regina’s waist. ‘Hello, I’m Peter, it’s nice to meet you. I hear you want to be an acrobat?’

She nodded and crept out a bit nearer. ‘I knew that already, mama told me all about you. My name is Petra,’ she shoved her little hand out very seriously for a handshake. Nureyev didn’t hesitate now. Formal he could do. ‘Can you really walk on a tightrope like she said?’

It was my turn to be surprised as Nureyev laughed. _Could he?_ He’d never mentioned it but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask. ‘I haven’t tried in a long time and I did just break my leg but…maybe? It’s a lot like riding a bike.’

‘Is it?’ I couldn’t help interrupting with a grin but my partner waved me off.

‘Did you work in a circus to learn?’ Petra continued her stern interrogation.

‘No, eh…’ Nureyev faltered, and then visibly made a decision. ‘My father taught me when I was a little bit older than you.’ I choked on my coffee and Regina became a living statue by the wall. We’d discussed Mag once or twice since I’d told Nureyev what I’d seen in his head I’d heard him call him “the man who raised me”, “like a parent”, or the “closest thing I had to a father” but nothing more explicit than that. Regina looked just as surprised, whether by the term or that Nureyev had voluntarily mentioned Mag at all. Sensing the energy change in the room, Nureyev deflected. ‘I did spend a month working in a circus on Venus though! I didn’t do highwire there, I was a knife thrower.’

That lit up Petra’s whole face and made both her mothers groan. ‘Can you teach me?’

‘Ah!’ He turned to me panicked, realising the hole he’d dug himself but I had gone from coughing to sniggering. ‘I don’t have any throwing knives on me right now I’m afraid and you really need the right tools for it to work.’

That nearly set me off laughing again, the idea of Nureyev without a knife. Then I thought back to our overzealous affection in the back of that taxi, found myself cataloguing the places I’d run my hands over, and then I stopped giggling at all.

‘Can you teach me to walk on my hands?’ Petra was undeterred. Nureyev looked up at Regina who snorted.

‘Okay, but neither of you better break anything, especially you, P.’

‘Reggie!’ Nureyev looked fake outraged. ‘It’s as if you don’t know me at all.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She pushed him towards the door. ‘And lose the stilettos before you start tumbling, you could take an eye out.’

We watched them head into the sitting room and shove the sofa out of the way. I was so taken up watching Nureyev kick off his rose gold heels and flip himself effortlessly onto his hands that I almost didn’t notice Angie laughing on the other side of the table. She was looking at Regina though.

‘I’m sorry, Gina, but… Reggie?’ Then she lost it altogether.

Regina slumped into Nureyev’s empty chair. ‘Damn I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no one’s called me that in years. He didn’t even want to give me a nickname. Said, what’s the point of picking out a name for you if you just going to ruin it.’ She did a passably imitation and then snorted. ‘But I thought it sounded tough.’ We both laughed and she scowled and added. ‘I was ten, give me a break.’

I turned back to watch Petra tumble sideways from her handstand and Nureyev dive to catch her with a look of abject terror. She just giggled and rolled out of his hands into a forward tumble.

‘He was pretty scared you know,’ I admitted. It didn’t feel like a betrayal to say that to Regina. She was an exception to our usual rule of silence and secrets. Like Nureyev could talk to Rita freely and not worry there was something she shouldn’t know about me. ‘I’ve seen him try to disarm bombs with less nerves then he had about meeting Petra.’ It was okay to say now because look at him.

‘I wasn’t sure he’d really come,’ Regina admitted. ‘Told Petra it wasn’t a sure thing because of work. Had about a million excuses ready.’

‘A million and one at least,’ Angie groaned. ‘She practised them on me.’

They were both back up on their hands now, Nureyev going slow to keep a close on his overeager student. When she fell again, she kicked him in the stomach which surprised him enough that he fell too and knocked over a chair. Regina tried to scold them but she was laughing too hard and then got a bit choked up.

‘I should finish dinner anyway,’ she grumbled rubbed her eyes. ‘We can’t all starve just because the Nureyev family circus is in town.’ Regina bustled over to the counter.

Angie watched her go with a smile, not fooled at all. ‘Half of those excuses were for her. More really. Petra was excited but she was getting to a point where Peter was more fictional character than anything, but Gina…’

‘I get it.’

‘So how are you handling the hurricane that is loving a Nureyev?’ She propped her chin up slyly on a muscular hand. ‘Going to make an honest thief out of my elusive brother-in-law.’

There went that coffee again. Why did I think I could have beverages around people with this name?

She cackled. ‘Gina’s right you are easy to fluster. She must have driven crazy you made while she was still pissed.’

‘I had my moments.’

The rest of the night passed a lot like that. When Petra and Nureyev came in for dinner they were both smiling and out of breath and Petra had somehow acquired half of Nureyev’s jewellery. The food was good and Nureyev had recovered enough that he could take over his usual role of doing most of the talking for both of us. Petra still had a million questions including a blunt one about my eye that made her parents tut but I answered honestly, since that’s what Nureyev had clearly decided to do.

‘Lost it in a fight with a telepathic mad scientist who was mean to your uncle.’ Which made Nureyev buried his face in a napkin to smother his cackling.

Regina gave me a look, then released I wasn’t kidding and just shook her head. ‘Was that how you met or…?’

‘No,’ Nureyev reappeared, red faced and wheezing from behind the napkin. ‘That was our third date? Possibly still the second. Juno, should the tomb be held separately to the Oasis and the train or should it all count as the one adventure?’ This was his attempt at revenge for my tactical honest and while it was working I refused to break.

‘I’d count them separately personally but it could go either way.’

He nodded seriously before turning back to his sister and saying calmly. ‘Third date.’ 

Damn it, I laughed. But by then Angie and Regina had joined in and Nureyev was attempting a child-friendly version of how we actually met.

‘…half-way out a window…’

‘…now in my defence!’

‘…then says he’s never tried eating cologne!’

‘I think you’re forgetting your attempt to discuss film set safety with a Kanagawa!’

‘That was probably when you had me you know,’ Nureyev grins at me past my arguing. ‘ _I’ve never tried eating cologne_. Honestly, Juno, I had a cover to maintain and Rex Glass was far too together to laugh at something like that.’

‘Oh right? You looked at me bleeding on the floor and said to yourself: this himbo, this is the one for me.’

‘Yes, love.’ Still all teeth and mischief. ‘And you?’

I considered making a joke, claiming it was the cologne or the flirting or all the stupid shit in his pockets but we’re doing this honesty thing here tonight so it doesn’t feel scary to say. ‘The way you looked at me, when I was distracting Cass so you could sneak up behind her, like you thought I could do anything.’ I was already blushing before I got to the end of the sentence. We hadn’t talked about that day in a long time.

‘Still do.’

Regina leaned over to pour us both a second glass of wine and tugged on Nureyev’s hair. ‘Good to know you’re both saps. I just asked Angie to dinner like a normal person.’

‘During a high speed car chase, Gina,’ Angie corrected mildly. ‘In a car you then blew up.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

It seemed bizarre to talk about all this in front of Petra but she didn’t seem phased at all. The honesty thing in this apartment was apparently not for our benefit but normal practise. Made me wonder about Angie, I knew her family had some kind of criminal background… which I was under no circumstances going to look into in fact I was going to stop even thinking about it too hard before I caused trouble.

Angie left not long after that to put the kid to bed. As they left, Petra gave me a small shy hug around my waist. Nureyev had to leaned down for his, being taller than me, and she planted a kiss on his cheek then scampered after her mother. Nureyev’s hands were shaking a little and he stood up. For a horrible second I thought he was going to burst into tears or worse just bolt or both.

Instead he circles around to the far side of the table to sit in Angie’s chair and pull Regina into a tight hug. He muttered something to her I didn’t quite catch but it sounded like ‘Sorry I’m late’. If there were tears as well? Well that’s none of your business.

Regina set us up in the guest room after that. It was a little surreal. Every now and again I’d panic and try to remember what job we were meant to be on and then remember there wasn’t one. That was probably a sign Nureyev and I needed to get out more when we weren’t working. While Nureyev folded up clothes I kissed down his spine.

‘You were telling the truth earlier,’ I said into his shoulder blade.

‘Ha, in general or…?’

‘Well yes but, you didn’t have any knives on you,’ I stepped back so he could turn to look at me. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t realise that I couldn’t feel them in the taxi until after you said it.’

‘You locked up your blaster, didn’t you? I meant what I said last night, about not having been the kind of man that people leave with children,’ I opened my mouth to argue, to lay out the evidence of the day, but he waved me down. ‘Listen, love. I don’t mean it in the same self-pitying way I said before but more realistically. I moved in galas and art galleries and weapons factories, armed to the teeth and saying nothing but lies. I mean would you ask Rex Glass to babysit? Of course not. I just decided that maybe… Peter Nureyev could be a bit better developed as a character. There were things I’d never got to try as him because he didn’t get out much.’ Nureyev shrugged, a little embarrassed at the strange explanation. ‘Peter Ransom couldn’t have come here unarmed, but I’m not Peter Ransom.’

‘No you’re not,’ my voice came out all thick and I kissed him rather than think about it. ‘You know who else you are, though?’ He raised an eyebrow and I leaned into his shoulder to hide my face a little so I could actually say it. ‘The love of my life. So there.’

On another night, he would have laughed at my childish way of saying it, how embarrassed I still got. Tonight though he curled around me, practically letting me hold him up and buried his face in my hair. We crawled into bed, somehow exhausted from what had been a pretty quiet day by our standards but it felt like we’d just survived one of our craziest jobs yet. There were two more weeks of this potentially in front of us. Of Juno and Peter staying with the in-laws. Of Juno and Peter meeting old friends for lunch. No one saw that coming, least of all us. We were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it! But I had so much fun with this idea that I thought I might write the vacation as its own fic? If that was something that interested people? We'll see how we all feel after the finale. Might need some fluff.


End file.
